5 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J 

I rw^r^ — I 



i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f 



* 



THE 



North Carolina Speaker: 



COMPRISING 

NEW, ORIGINAL, ATTRACTIVE AND PATRIOTIC 
RECITATIONS AND DECLAMATIONS, 



BY 



CITIZENS OF THE STATE 



EVERY GRADE OF PUPILS IN NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOLS. 



/ COMPILED BY 

Eugene G. Harrell and John B. Neathery, 

Editors of North Carolina Teacher."' 




RALEIGH: 
ALFRED WILLIAMS & CO. 

1887. 



of 



* 
•$ 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1886, by 

ALFRED WILLIAMS & CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PRESSES OF 

E. M. UZZELL. 



BOTH TO THE MANOR BORN AND THOSE ADOPTED FROM SISTER 
STATES, WHOSE EARNEST AND FAITHFUL WORK 
IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM HAS SO 
GREATLY HONORED OUR STATE; TO EVERY SON AND DAUGHTER 
OF NORTH CAROLINA, AT HOME AND ABROAD, 
AND FRIEND OF PROGRESSIVE 
EDUCATION WITHIN OUR BORDERS; TO THE STATE PRESS, WHOSE 
UNTIRING EFFORTS HAVE BEEN OF INVALUABLE 
AID IN PROMOTING THE EDU- 
CATIONAL, FINANCIAL AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY OF NORTH 
CAROLINA, THIS VOLUME, WITH THE INTENT OF 

PERPETUATING OUR STATE 
LITERATURE, IS SINCERELY DEDICATED BY THE 

COMPILERS. 



PREFACE. 

OUR long and intimate association with the teachers of the 
State, friends of progressive education and our school interests 
generally, has convinced us of the existence of a strong demand for 
fresher and better pieces for declamation and recitation in North 
Carolina schools. 

To supply this want is the mission of this little book, and at the 
same time it is the desire of the authors to displace the old and 
hackneyed pieces in our school-rooms by supplying original and the 
very brightest, best and most patriotic thoughts and speeches of our 
own people, and thus perpetuate the memory of eminent North 
Carolinians, and foster a stronger spirit of State pride in the minds 
of our young people, such as will make them truer and better sons 
and daughters of North Carolina. 

The North Carolina Speaker is without a compeer, it being 
the first book of the kind published in America confining its selec- 
tions entirely to the literature of a single State. It has been care- 
fully edited, after about two years given to the collection and prep- 
aration of material ; and though the work has been done amidst 
the frequent interruptions of active business, yet we feel that the 
book is creditable to our State, and we are profoundly thankful for 
the liberal aid extended to us by all, and for the very enthusiastic 
reception given to the Speaker. 

We have endeavored to present pieces suitable for every occasion 
requiring declamations for the school stage, and have acted largely 
on our editorial privilege in re-arranging and adapting to our pur- 
poses, and the book is offered to North Carolina teachers with the 



VI PKEFACE. 

hope that they will be able to find in its pages just the piece wanted 
for any occasion. 

It was once said, as a reproach, that North Carolina had no litera- 
ture — we trust that the variety and scope of this little book may 
remove that impression if it yet exists in any rational mind. As an 
evidence that North Carolina stands very high on the literary roll, 
it will be seen that this book contains writings of great merit from 
almost every class of our educated people. There is representative 
work from the farmer at his plow, the lawyer in the forum, the 
minister at the desk, the teacher in the school-room, the mother in 
the home, the merchant in the office, the banker in the counting- 
room, the politician on the hustings, the judge upon the bench, the 
statesman in Congress, the printer at the case, the editor in his 
sanctum, and the student on the platform, and a large number of 
the pieces here given were written expressly for this book. 

We have made the selections to occupy from three to six minutes 
in delivery, than which no school speech should be longer, so that 
the interest of an audience may be kept through the entire exer- 
cises, for on that the success of an entertainment depends. 

Hoping that this little contribution to the school literature of 
North Carolina may be of material aid to the teachers and pupils of 
our schools, it is respectfully submitted. 

Eugene G. Harrell, 
John B. Neathery. 

Ealeigh, May 10, 1887. 



AUTHORS. 



Mr. William Waitstill Avery (Burke County). 

A lawyer of prominence at t he Morganton Bar, and a member of 
the General Assembly. Killed in 1865, by a raiding party of 
United States soldiers. 

Rev. Joseph M. Atkinson. 

Brother of the late Bishop Atkinson, and for many years a min- 
ister of the Presbyterian Church at Raleigh, where he now 
resides. 

Mr. James H. Alford (Franklin County). 

Graduated as Master of the "Art Preservative' 7 in the Biblical 
Recorder office ; still engaged in the honorable calling of printer. 

Hon. John H. Bryan (New Bern). 

Graduated at Chapel Hill in 1815; read law, and was a member 
of the 19th and 20th Congress. Removed to Raleigh, where he 
died May 19, 1870. 

Rev. D. K. Bennett (resides at Morganton). 

Author of "Chronology of North Carolina." A Baptist minister. 

Mr. Charles M. Busbee (Wake County). 

Late a member of the State Senate, and a prominent member of 
the Raleigh Bar. 

William Henry Blount (Wilson County). 

Editor of Wilson Mirror, and a very popular writer. 

Hon. Kemp P. Battle, LL. D. (Franklin County). 

lias held many honorable positions of trust in the State, and is 
now, and has been for several years, President of the University 
of North Carolina. 

Col. William Bingham (Orange County). 

Author of " Bingham's Latin Grammar," " Caesar," &c. For many 
years, and up to his death, proprietor of and teacher in the 
famous Bingham School. 



VIII AUTHORS. 

John Henry Boner (Forsyth County). 

A printer, and author of many beautiful poems. Now in New 
York City. 

Capt. W. T. R. Bell (Carteret County). 

Principal of the King's Mountain High School, Cleveland county. 

Miss Lizette C. Bernheim. 

Daughter of Rev. C. H. Bernheim, a Lutheran minister. Editor 
of " At Home and Abroad." 

Mrs. Mary Bayard Clarke (Wake County). 

Daughter of T. P. Devereux, and wife of Hon. William J. Clarke, 
Judge of the Superior Courts of the State. Author of " Mosses 
from a Rolling Stone," &c. Died at New Bern, 1886. 

Rev. Needham Bryan Cobb (Wayne County). 

A minister of the Baptist Church. Father of Prof. Collier Cobb, 
the author of North Carolina Map. 

Mr. Josephus Daniels (Wilson County). 

Editor of the State Chronicle, Raleigh, N. C, and State Printer. 

Rev. Charles F. Deems (Maryland). 

For many years a Professor in North Carolina University. He 
is a Methodist minister, and is now Pastor of the Church of 
the Strangers, New York City. 

Prof. James A. Delke. 

For many years Professor of Mathematics in Chowan Baptist 
Female Institute, Murfreesboro. Now a teacher in Thomasville 
Female College. 

Mrs. Fannie Murdaugh Downing. 

Resided for many years at Charlotte. Author of "Nameless" 
and other novels. 

Hon. James C. Dobbin (Cumberland County). 

Distinguished as a Legislator, Congressman and Secretary of the 
Navy of the United States. 

Capt. Claud B. Denson (Suffolk, Va.). 

A gallant Confederate officer. His civil life has been spent in 
teaching. Now 7 Associate Principal of Raleigh Male Academy . 



AUTHORS. IX 

Miss Narctssa E. Davis (Carteret County). 
A teacher. 

Hon. George Davis (New Hanover County). 

Attorney-General of the Confederate States, and now a leading 
member of the Wilmington Bar. 
Mr. Edwin W. Fuller (Franklin County). 
Author of "The Angel in the Cloud," " Sea Gift," and some 
other poems of great merit. He died April 22, 1876. 

Hon. Sidney M. Finger (Catawba County). 

Now State Superintendent of Public Instruction for North Caro- 
lina. 

Miss Frances Fisher ("Christian Reid"). 

A daughter of Col. Charles F. Fisher, who fell at the first battle 
of Manassas. Author of " Land of the Sky," and several pop- 
ular works of fiction. 

Hon. William Gaston (Craven County). 

Member of Congress and Judge of the Supreme Court of North 
Carolina. 

Dr. Eugene Grissom (Granville County). 

A gallant Captain and Surgeon in the Confederate Army; mem- 
ber of the Legislature, and for the past eighteen years Superin- 
tendent of the Insane Asylum at Raleigh. 

Mr. Robert T. Gray (Forsyth County). 

A prominent member of the Raleigh Bar, and Attorney for the 
City. 

Mr. George H. Gorman (Wake County). 
An Attorney at Law, residing in Norfolk, Va. 

Mrs. Ida Harrell Horne (Wilson County). 

Daughter of Rev. W. B. Harrell ; resides at Clayton, in Johnston 
County. 
Thomas W. Harrington (Harnett County). 

A farmer, and member of the Legislature of 1887. 

Hon. Joseph W. Holden (Wake County). 

Son of ex-Governor Holden, editor, Speaker of the House of 
Representatives and Mayor of Raleigh. Died 1875. 



X AUTHORS. 

Hon. William W. Holden (Orange County). 

Editor of the North Carolina Standard, and Governor of North 
Carolina, 1868-'69. 

Mr. Theophilus H. Hill (Wake County). 

A grandson of William Hill, for many years Secretary of State 
of North Carolina. A son of the late Dr. William G. Hill. 
Author of " Hesper and Other Poems," and " Passion Flower 
and Other Poems." 

Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D., LL. D. (Craven County). 
Distinguished as a writer and a pulpit orator. Author of a his- 
tory of North Carolina. Bishop of the Episcopal Church of 
Rhode Island. 

Rev. William B. Harrell, M. D. (Suffolk, Va.). 

Has lived in North Carolina since childhood. Minister of Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church, and a teacher for twenty-five years. 
Now residing at Salem, N. C. 

Mr. Theodore B. Kingsbury (Granville County). 

Is now and has been for many years editor of the Star at Wil- 
mington, and one of the most polished writers in the State. 

Hon. John Kerr (Caswell County). 

For many years Legislator, Congressman, and Judge of our Su- 
perior Courts. 
Mrs. Lucie Maynard Leach (Johnston County). 

Author of " Scattered Leaves," a book of poems. 
Rev. Thomas G. Lowe (Halifax County). 

A Methodist minister of wonderful eloquence and power. 

Dr. Richard H. Lewis (Edgecombe County). 

For many years, and is now, President of Kinston College. 
Second President of North Carolina Teachers' Assembly. 

Rev. William S. Lacy (Wake County). 

A son of the late Rev. Drury Lacy, D. D. A Presbyterian minis- 
ter, now residing at Jonesboro, Moore county. 

Mr. John S. Long (Craven County). 

Superintendent of Public Instruction for Craven county. 



AUTHORS. XI 

Hon. James Madison Leach (Davidson County). 

For many years a member of Congress, and now a leading mem- 
ber of the Lexington Bar. 

Rev. M. M. Marshall, D. D. (Chatham County). 

An Episcopal clergyman, and is now Rector of Christ Church at 
Raleigh. 

Mr. James Iredell McRee (New Hanover County). 

Editor of the News and Observer, Raleigh ; and President of the 
North Carolina Press Association. 

Rev. Adolphus W. Mangum, D. D. (Orange County). 

A prominent Methodist minister, and for many years a member 
of the Faculty of the State University at Chapel Hill. 

Miss Martha Mills (Granville County). 

Daughter of Mr. John H. Mills, Superintendent of the Baptist 
Orphanage at Thomasville. 

Major John W. Moore (Hertford County). 

A brave Confederate officer, author of the School and Library 
Histories of North Carolina, and other works. 

Mr. Henry W. Miller (Wake County). 

For many years one of the most eloquent members of the Raleigh 
Bar. 

Rev. Thomas H. Pritchard, D. D. (Mecklenburg County). 
A prominent minister of the Baptist denomination. Late Presi- 
dent of Wake Forest College. Now pastor in Wilmington. 

Mr. William J. Peele (Northampton County). 
An Attorney at Law in the City of Raleigh. 

Col. William Polk (Mecklenburg County). 

Was present at the Mecklenburg Declaration, May 20, 1775. A 
brave and gallant soldier of the Revolution. Father of Bishop 
Polk, of the Confederate Army. 

Hon. Matt. W. Ransom, (Warren County). 

Graduated at Chapel Hill with highest honors ; Attorney- General 
of North Carolina; entered the Confederate Army as Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel and rose to the rank of Major-General ; since 1872 
United States Senator from North Carolina. 



XII AUTHORS. 

Mr. S. M. S. Rolinson. 

A leading teacher of Dare county. 
Rev, E. Rondthaler. 

Principal of Salem Female Academy, one of the oldest and most 
noted of our female schools. 

Rev. Numa F. Reid (Rockingham County). 

A distinguished minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Died in 1873. 

Mr. James B. Shepard (Craven County). 

For many years a leading politician of the State. 

Mr. Edward Chambers Smith (Wake County). 

Son of Hon. W. N. H. Smith, Chief Justice of our Supreme 
Court. Is practicing law in Raleigh, and a member of the City 
Council. 

Hon. Robert Strange. (New Hanover County). 

Many years a Judge of our Superior Courts. A most accom- 
plished gentleman. 

Rev. Thos. E. Skinner, D. D. (Perquimans County). 

Graduated at Chapel Hill, and Union Theological Seminary ; for 
thirty-five years a leading Baptist minister. Resides at Raleigh. 

Hon. John N. Staples (Guilford County). 

A prominent Legislator, and a leading member of the Greensboro 
Bar. 

Mr. H. J. Stockard (Alamance County). 

A member of the Faculty of Graham Normal College, and author 
of several poems. 

Mrs. Claudia M. Tolson (Wake County). 

Daughter of Rev. Thomas Meredith, founder of the Biblical Re- 
corder. She now resides at the thriving town of Gadsden, Ala. 
Hon. Zebulon B. Vance (Buncombe County). 

Three times Governor of North Carolina, now United States 
Senator. 
Rev. Calvin H. Wiley, D. D. (Granville County). 

A Presbyterian minister, and first Superintendent of Public In- 
struction in North Carolina. Died 1887. 



AUTHOKS. 



XIII 



Mr. Z. W. Whitehead (Guilford County). 

Well known as the editor of the Greensboro Patriot. 

Prof. George T. Winston (Bertie County). 

A member of the Faculty of the University of North Carolina. 

Mr. Seymour W. Whiting (New England). 

Emigrated to North Carolina many years ago and settled at 
Raleigh. He was a bank officer. Died in 1854. 




CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Age of Gold John S.Long 32 

American Explorer Richard H.Lewis... 54 

An Angel in the Marble Geo. H. Gorman 56 

Alamance S. W. Whiting 62 

A Happy Country W. W. Holden 88 

America's Greatness Ed. (J. Smith 94 

A Child's Faith Franc-is L. Hawks.. Ill 

A Rest for the Peopee of God William Bingham.... 129 

A Modern Utopia LizelteC. Bernheiin.. 132 

A Vision Claudia M. Tolson... 143 

A Corn Speech Anon 93 

A Glorious Day W. H. Blount 144 

Ambition, True and False S. M. Finger 172 

Bells of Christmas John Henry Boner... 17 

Be Patient, Teacher Ida HarrelF Home... 65 

Boys A. W. Mangum 73 

Bells of Heaven Edwin W. Fuller 151 

Benefits of the Civil War Charles M. Busbee... 190 

Character of Washington Z. B. Vance 2 

Charlotte of Mecklenburg Kemp P. Battle 13 

Coming of a Summer Day William S. Lacy 29 

Carolina James A. Delke 44 

Carolina, Our Pride T. W. Harrington... 116 

Childhood W. T. R. Bell 130 

Dixie Fannie Downing 178 

Education. Joseph M. Atkinson.. 18 

Enduring Possessions John H. Bryan 150 

Folly of Complaining Charles F. Deems.... 25 

Geographical Charade — North Car- 
olina M. B. C. Slade 66 

George Washington William Polk Ill 

God Bless Our State Eugene G. Harrell... 154 



XVI CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Great Reforms are Slow W. J. Peele 185 

Good Night Eugene G. HarrelJ... 200 

Hatteras Jos. W. Holden 50 

Ho! for Carolina! W. B. Harrell 105 

Historic Record of North Carolina..J. M. Leach 184 

Integrity the Basis of Character. ..William Gaston 4 

Indian Names in North Carolina.. ..Kemp P. Battle 19 

I Love my Native State H. J. Stockard 31 

In a Dream W. S. Lacy 79 

Independence Day D. K. Bennett 175 

John's First Speech Eugene G. Harrell... 61 

Let Us All be Up and Doing Mary Bayard Clarke 24 

Life T. W. Harrington.... 41 

Liberty and Law Geo. T. Winston 42 

Little Lottie's Speech Miss Martha Mills... 87 

Language Thos. H. Pritchard.. 119 

Love of Liberty John Kerr 134 

Life of a Dew-Drop Martha Mills 148 

Mystery of Cro-a-tan Margaret J. Preston.. 161 

North Carolina ,.Wm. B. Harrell 21 

North Carolina and the Union James C. Dobbin 84 

North Carolina and the Stamp Ac r r...George Davis 140 

North Carolina Teachers Eugene G. Harrell... 146 

Neuse River Thomas Watson 167 

North Carolina's Independence Z.B.Vance 177 

Our State W. H. Blount 7 

Old North State W T illiam Gaston 1 

Our Country — Past and Present John N. Staples 37 

Our State's Pure Record John W. Moore 113 

Our Country Henry W.Miller 152 

Our Duty as Patriots... T. B. Kingsbury 188 

Old North State Forever..... Z. W. Whitehead.... 188 

Patriotism E. C. Smith 63 

Pilot Mountain Jas. B. Shepard 69 

Patriotism of Southern Women C. B. Denson 71 

Paul Before Agrippa Thos. E. Skinner 168 

Racing Water Mary Bayard Clarke 6 



CONTENTS. XVII 

PAGE. 

Reply to "Gray's Elegy" Needhara B.Cobb... 35 

Review of Our Dead H. J. Stockard 48 

River of Knowledge S. M. S. Rolinson.... 73 

Revolution not Always Reform W.J. Peele 81 

Rose-bud of North Carolina Robert Strange 90 

Retrospection Thos. G. Lowe 96 

Randolph A. Shotwell Josephus Daniels 159 

Swannanoa Philo Henderson 11 

Speak Gently Lucie M. Leach 75 

Soldier True Who Wore the GRAY...Narcissa E. Davis.... 83 

State Pride W. W. Avery 106 

Star Above the Manger Then. H. Hill... 121 

Small Beginnings. Z. B. Vance... 123 

Source of Happiness Numa F. Reid 180 

Southern Women R.T.Gray 196 

To Our State Mary Bayard Clarke 27 

True North Carolinians T. B. Kingsbury 46 

True Mission of Woman. Calvin H. Wiley 101 

The Alabama Frances Fisher 125 

The True Woman ..E Rondthaler 127 

The Reason Why John B. Neathery... 109 

The Tongue James H. Alford 164 

The Blind Boy Francis L. Hawks... 170 

The Gander T. W. Harrington.... 182 

The Mysterious Border-Land Eugene Grissom 192 

The Telegraph... W. W. Holden 194 

The Union Invaluable Henry W.Miller 97 

Value of the Union ...Matt. W. Ransom.... 146 

What is Chaff to the Wheat? M. M. Marshall 34 

What the Press has Done for North 

Carolina v James I. McRee 58 

What I W t ill Do John B. Neathery... 70 

Walter Raleigh and Virginia Dare..Jos. W t . Holden 76 

Walter Raleigh John W. Moore 91 

What I Shall Be Eugene G. Harrell... 99 

Willie Theo. H. Hill 137 

Wood Dreamings Anon 187 



HINTS TO SPEAKERS. 



IT is well enough to remember always that the best piece which 
is to be found can be thoroughly spoiled by improper delivery. 
To aid pupils somewhat in making a successful speech the following 
suggestions are offered, with the hope that they will be carefully 
considered; 

1. Come upon the stage in a deliberate, easy and graceful manner 
and when you reach your position pause about five seconds before 
making your bow. 

2. Begin slowly but distinctly, and gradually warm up with the 
subject as you proceed. 

3. Look toward the people on both sides of you while speaking, 
but make your speech to the person in the room who is furthest from you, 
and then those who are nearer will be sure to hear you and all will 
enjoy your speech. 

4. Study the subject of your piece well and try to understand it 
thoroughly; find where the emphatic words occur and be sure to give 
the emphasis. 

5. Feel what you are saying, and try to make your audience feel 
as you do and think as you think. 

6. Give ample pause at the end of important sentences, that the 
thoughts may make an impression on the minds of your hearers. 

7. When you talk about North Carolina, her glories or her deeds 
of valor, or any North Carolina subject, be enthusiastic and try to 
show your audience that you are in love with your native State. 

8. Finally. Know your piece well, speak slowly, pronounce every 
word distinctly, be pleasant, keep cool, and your speech will be 
satisfactory to you and give your audience pleasure. 



THE 

NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



THE OLD XORTH STATE FOREVER. 



CAROLINA! Carolina! Heaven's blessings attend 
her ! 
AVhile we live we will cherish, protect and defend her; 
Though the scorner may sneer at and witlings defame 

her, 
Our hearts swell with gladness whenever we name her, 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the Old Xorth State forever ! 
Hurrah! Hurrah! the good Old North State! 

Though she envies not others their merited glorv. 
Yet her name stands the foremost in Liberty's story ! 
Though too true to herself e'er to crouch to oppression, 
Xone e'er yields to just rule more loyal submission. 
Hurrah, &c. 

Plain and artless her sons, but whose doors open faster, 
To the knock of the stranger, or the tale of disaster? 
How like to the rudeness of their native mountains, 
Rich ore in their bosoms and life in their fountains. 
Hurrah, &c. 



2 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

And her daughters, the queen of our forest resembling. 
So graceful, so constant, to gentlest breath trembling, 
So true at their hearts when the test is applied them, 
How blessed each day as we spend it beside them ! 
Hurrah, &c. 

Then let all who love us, love the land that we live in, 

(As happy a region as this side of Heaven), 

Where Plenty and Freedom, Love and Peace smile 

before us, 
Raise aloud, raise together, the heart-thrilling chorus ! 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the Old North State forever ! 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the good Old North State! 
William Gaston. (Adapted). 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 



THE composition of man is threefold : physical, 
intellectual, and moral. It is the justly propor- 
tioned composition of these three that constitutes the real 
excellence of perfect manhood — that creature, made a 
little lower than the angels, the noblest image of God. 

Perhaps no character in history can be pronounced 
truly great without this combination ; certainly not if 
the moral attributes be deficient. 

All of the qualities which belong to the " noble family 
of truth," which engender love of country, and promote 
the good of mankind and the glory of God, are born and 
bred in the moral nature of man, from which likewise 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 3 

spring the evil qualities which afflict and debase the 
world. That system of ethics, therefore, which best 
succeeds in developing the excellencies of our moral 
nature is the one which most commends itself to our 
race. The noble characters which it produces are justly 
held up as living, practical examples of the excellence 
of its principles. 

Viewed with reference to these facts, George Wash- 
ington may be justly considered one of the greatest 
men whom the world has produced. Greater soldiers, 
more intellectual statesmen, and profounder sages have 
doubtless existed in the history of the English race — 
perhaps in our own country — but not one who to great 
excellence in each of these fields has added such exalted 
integrity, such unaffected piety, such unsullied purity of 
soul, and such wondrous control of his own spirit. He 
illustrated and adorned the civilization of Christianity, 
and furnished an example of the wisdom and perfection 
of its teachings which the subtlest arguments of its 
enemies cannot impeach. That one grand, rounded life, 
full-orbed with intellectual and moral glory, is worth, as 
the product of Christianity, more than all the dogmas 
of all the teachers. The youth of America who aspire 
to promote their own and their country's welfare should 
never cease to gaze upon his great example, or to 
remember that the brightest gems in the crown of his 
immortality, the qualities which upheld his fame upon 
earth and plead for him in Heaven, were those w T hich 
characterized him as the patient, courteous, brave, 
Christian gentleman. In this respect he was a blessing 



4 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

to the whole human race no less than to his own coun- 
trymen; to the many millions who celebrate the day of 
his birth. 

Zebulon B. Vance. 



INTEGRITY THE BASIS OF CHARACTER, 



THE first great maxim of human conduct, that 
which it is all-important to impress on the under- 
standings of young men, and recommend to their hearty 
adoption, is — above all things, in all circumstances, and 
under every emergency — to preserve a clean heart and 
an honest purpose. Integrity, firm, determined integrity, 
is that quality which, of all others, raises man to the 
highest dignity of his nature, and fits him to adorn and 
bless the sphere in which he is appointed to move. 
Without it, neither genius nor learning, neither the gifts 
of God nor human exertions, can avail aught for the 
accomplishment of the great objects of human existence. 
Integrity is the crowning virtue — integrity is the per- 
vading principle which ought to regulate, guide, control 
and vivify every impulse, desire and action. Honesty 
is sometimes spoken of as a vulgar virtue; and, perhaps, 
that honesty which barely refrains from outraging the 
positive rules ordained by society for the protection of 
property, and which ordinarily pays its debts and per- 
forms its engagements, however useful and commendable 
a quality, is not to be numbered among the highest 
efforts of human virtue. But that integrity which, 



INTEGRITY THE BASIS OF CHARACTER. 5 

however tempting the opportunity, or however sure 
against detection, no selfishness nor resentment, no lust 
of power, place, profit or pleasure, can cause to swerve 
from the strict rule of right, is the perfection of man's 
moral nature. In this sense the poet was right when he 
pronounced 

"An honest man the noblest work of God/' 

It is almost inconceivable what an erect and inde- 
pendent spirit this high endowment communicates to the 
man, and what a moral intrepidity and vivifying energy 
it imparts to his character. There is a family alliance 
between all the virtues, and perfect integrity is always 
followed by a train of goodly qualities, frankness, 
benevolence, humanity, patriotism, promptness to act 
and patience to endure. In moments of public need, 
these indicate the man who is worthy of universal con- 
fidence. 

Erected on such a basis, and built up of such materials, 
fame is enduring. Such is the fame of our Washington, 
of the man "inflexible to ill and obstinately just." 
While, therefore, other monuments intended to perpetuate 
human greatness are daily mouldering into dust, and 
belie the proud inscriptions which they bear, the solid 
granite pyramid of his glory lasts from age to age, 
imperishable — seen afar off — looming high over the vast 
desert — a mark, a sign and a wonder for the wayfarers 
through the pilgrimage of life. 

William Gaston. 



THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



RACING WATER.* 



RACING Water, who can paint thee, 
With thy scenery wild and grand? 
It would take a magic pencil 
Guided by a master hand. 

Here are towering, rugged mountains, 
Granite rocks all scarred and gray, 

Nature's altars whence her incense 
Floats in wreaths of mist away. 

At thy feet the murmuring waters 
Now are singing songs of praise, 

Or in sonorous notes triumphant 
A majestic pean raise. 

Down the canyon's rocky gorges 
Now they wildly, madly sweep, 

As, with laughing shout exultant, 
O'er the rocks they joyous leap. 

Then in calm and limpid beauty 
Still and deep they silent flow, 

With the verdant banks o'erhanging 
Pictured in the depths below. 

Pulsing from the heart of Nature, 

Here thy "Hot Spring's" genial gush, 



*The Name of French Broad River in the Cherokee language was MTah- 
kee-os-tee," signifying "racing waters." 



OUR STATE, 

There, like stream from Alpine glacier, 
Down the mountain coldly rush. 

Tah-kee-os-tee — Racing Water — 

Was thy sonorous Indian name, 
But as u French Broad" thou art written 

On the white man ; s roll of fame. 

Perish that — but live the other! 

For on every dancing wave 
Evermore is shown the beauty , 

Of the name the red man gave. 

Mary Bayard Clarke. 



OUR STATE. 



WITH a bosom swelling with glowing emotion, 
and with eyes radiant with brilliant sparkles of 
joy and pride, I come to speak of the matchless splen- 
dors and matchless resources of our grand and matchless 
State. I say matchless because it is the only State in 
the Union whose products fill up every blank in the 
United States Census Report, and all those who have 
enjoyed its sunny skies and delightful atmosphere agree 
in pronouncing it the favored spot of earth, hence it can 
indeed be called the grand and matchless State. 

Yes, there is indeed a wealth of agricultural and 
mineral resources which make our dear, modest, meek, 
humble and unpretentious old State capable of the 
grandest and most magnificent possibilities. It shows 



8 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

that she is nursing in her bosom to-day, as they lie undis- 
turbed in sweetest and serenest repose, those germs of 
wealth which will enable her, when they are well grown 
and fully developed, to ride in the luxuriantly cushioned 
carriage of opulent and affluent splendor. 

It is a land whose perpetual dripping of golden sun- 
beams makes our severest winters an eternal stranger to 
those sharp and biting winds which sleep on beds of ice, 
wrapped in sheets of everlasting snow. It is a land 
whose bleak December allows the flower-embowered 
verandas and vine-clad piazzas to remain comfortable 
enough for lovers to find their sweetest retreat; and 
there, warmed only by the glimmering fires of falling 
starbeams, they count the dulcet flight of happiest 
moments, timed to the rapturous pulsings of their own 
ecstatic heart-beats, as they go ebbing away, freighted 
with the odor of fragrant flowers, and the melody of 
birds, whose throats are lined with song the whole year 
through. 

It is indeed and in truth a magic land, for here apples 
grow and ripen and mellow twice on the same tree in one 
year, for summer brings to these sun-kissed vales all of 
the sweetest and balmiest influences of its gorgeous and 
luxuriant wealth, and scatters as her incense and her 
fondest tribute to this beautiful shrine of plenteous 
land— favored of God and loved of man. It is a land 
where the golden sunlight of morn, aroused by the 
merry prattle and rippling laughter of splashing billows, 
scatters the first sparkling showers of living light, and 
makes gorgeous with crimson splendor some of the love- 



OUR STATE. 9 

liest vales that were ever stretched out beneath the broad 
and vast canopy of Heaven. It is a land whose vales, 
threaded with silvery brooklets, and dotted with flowery 
grottoes, make one dream of a new Florida, a new crea- 
tion; where flowers grow in richest bloom and sweetest 
fragrance; where song birds sing their merry roundelay 
from early morn till late at night, making the whole 
year vocal with notes of gladness, and causing portions 
of every month of winter to resemble a flower-wreathed 
child of fragrant spring. 

It is a land whose high mountain tops, catching all 
the crimson glories of gorgeous sunsets, preserve for 
man's delectation and rapture those exquisite tintings of 
beauty, seemingly made only for visions of the blest in 
the enchanted realms of Paradise. The scenes of beauty 
seen in the tangled dell, the vine-draped grotto, and the 
crystal streams, as they gleam in all the wild magnifi- 
cence of their frost-wrought coloring, would dazzle and 
bewilder the brains of all the Titians and all the Claude 
Lorraines who ever painted with enchanted brush the 
rich creations of their poetic brains. 

Yes, it is a land rich in scenes like these, for here 
Nature absolutely seems to lavish all the rich colors of 
Heaven on the landscape. Earth dons her most gorgeous 
apparelling of myriad-hued tapestry. Creation seems 
bathed in prismatic splendors. The willows and cotton- 
woods, aspens and laurels, in their delicate draperies of 
green and gold, flutter and simper with coquettish delight 
at the whisperings of the loving breeze. 

Yes, come, friends from other States, come and see for 



10 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

yourselves, and now is the time, for November is, of all 
the year, the queen month here. She comes dancing 
over peak and prairie, lake, vale and deep-tangled dell, 
scattering beauty and brilliancy unknown to dwellers in 
a less favored realm. The flutter of her many-colored, 
gauzy robes is like the dazzle of celestial kaleidoscopes. 
Her artist fingers weave mantles of autumn's brightest 
tintings for the woods and sloping lake and river sides. 
The whole air is resonant with the slumberous melody 
of falling Avaters which are resplendent with the glories 
of a million shattered rainbows, as the last sunbeams of 
summer, tangled in meshes of the spray and mist, die 
like ethereal dolphins in a blaze of many-tinted pain. 

And above all this bends a sky of translucent azure, 
beauteous as ever beheld itself reflected back in the blue 
waves of Naples or the Golden Horn. And over the 
whole entrancing landscape, sleeping in the mellow 
autumn sunlight; over hill and valley, mountain, lake 
and plain; over crag, rock, rivulet and cascade, the 
mystic Indian Summer spreads her soft veil of blue and 
lavender hazy crape woven from the smoke, wreathing 
up in graceful spirals from the Heaven-pointing chim- 
neys of happy and peaceful homes. 

And in addition to all these natural attractions, it is 
a land of good morals and steady habits, of wise rulers 
and wholesome laws — a land where strikes are never 
feared and riots are unknown. A land of peace and 
order, and where a man of thrift and energy, industry 
and enterprise, can sit under the shade of his own vine 
and fig tree, and enjoy all the precious blessings neces- 
sary to fill up a sweet and contented existence. 



SWANNANOA. 1 1 

And above all else, and far better, it is a land where 
man's reverence and adoration for womanly virtue and 
female excellence give to society that charm and delight 
and rapture which makes it seem a foretaste of Elysium, 
and shows that here in our dear old State woman reigns 
a God-crowned Queen, and all pay tribute to her royal 
sway. 

These are some of the blessings and advantages which 
make North Carolina one of the most desirable spots for 
a habitation on this beautiful green earth. 

AV. H. Blount. 



SWANNANOA. 



SWANNANOA, nymph of beauty, 
I would woo thee in my rhyme; 
Wildest, brightest, loveliest river 
Of our sunny, southern clime ! 
Swannanoa, well they named thee, 

In the mellow Indian tongue; 
Beautiful* thou art, most truly, 
And right worthy to be sung. 

I have stood by many a river 
Known to story and to song, — 

Ashley, Hudson, Susquehanna, 
Fame to which may well belong; 



* Swannanoa, in the Cherokee language, signifies "Beautiful."' 



12 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

I have camped by the Ohio, 
Trod Scioto's fertile banks, 

Followed far the Juniata, 

In the wildest of her pranks, — 

But thou reign est queen forever, 

Child of Appalachian hills, 
Winning tribute as thou flowest 

From a thousand mountain rills. 
Thine is beauty, strength-begotten, 

Mid the cloud-begirded peaks, 
Where the patriarch of the mountains,* 

Heavenward far thy water seeks. 

Through the laurels and the beeches, 

Bright thy silvery current shines 5 
Sleeping now in granite basins, 

Overhung by trailing vines, 
And anon careering onward, 

In the maddest frolic mood, 
Waking, with its sea-like voices, 

Fairy echoes in the wood. 

Peaceful sleep thy narrow valleys, 

In the shadow of the hills; 
And thy flower-enamelled border 

All the air with fragrance fills; 
Wild luxuriance, — generous tillage, — 

Here alternate meet the view ; 
Every turn, through all thy windings, 

Still revealing something new. 



*The Black Mountain, — in which the stream has its source. 



CHARLOTTE OF MECKLENBUEG. 13 

W'here, oh ! graceful Swannanoa, 

Are the warriors who of old 
Sought thee, at thy mountain sources, 

Where thy springs are icy cold, — 
Where the dark-browed Indian maidens, 

Who their limbs were wont to lave 
(Worthy bath for fairer beauty) 

In thy cool and limpid wave? 

Gone forever from thy borders, 

But immortal in thy name, 
Are the red men of the forest ! 

Be thou keeper of their fame ! 
Paler races dwell beside thee; 

Celt and Saxon till thy lands, 
Wedding use unto thy beauty, — 

Linking over thee their hands. 

Jacques. 



'CHARLOTTE OF MECKLENBURG." 



IN 1761, Admiral George, Lord Anson, with all the 
pomp and splendor which the British Navy could 
supply, was bringing from Germany a blooming bride to 
the young king, George III. Her name was Charlotte. 
She was a princess of Mecklenburg Strelitz. These 
names are great in history. 

Few men stand out in English history more distin- 
guished for romantic daring as a navigator, for the strong, 
sturdy qualities of English sailors, descendants of the 



14 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

old Northmen who issued from their frozen fastnesses in 
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, like an irresistible tor- 
rent, to conquer the nations, than George, Lord Anson. 
He led a squadron around Cape Horn in the perils of 
winter, and after many vicissitudes circumnavigated the 
globe. He was the pioneer of the great victories of the 
' English Navy. He was the teacher of Nelson. He it 
was who first announced and acted on the daring order 
which has led to so many victories over overwhelming 
odds, by English over French and Spaniards, and in the 
War of 1812, by Americans over English, "close with 
the enemy, gun to gun, hand to hand, cutlass to cutlass, 
no matter what odds against you." In early life he 
purchased lands on the waters of the Pee Dee, but his 
dreams of forest happiness were broken by the alarum 
of war. In 1749, when at the zenith of his popularity, 
his name was given to the vast country which extended 
from the limits of Bladen to the far waters of the mighty 
Mississippi. 

George III. began to reign in 1760, for a few short 
years one of the most popular kings who ever sat on 
a throne, both at home and in the colonies, though in 
course of time his obstinacy alienated many of his sub- 
jects, and lost him the American possessions. 

When his bride, the homely but sensible and pious 
Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, came from the north 
of Germany to England she was the favorite of the 
day. It was the fashion to admire everything German', 
from the stern Frederick, then striking some of the most 
terrific blows of the Seven Years' War, to the blooming 



CHABLOTTE OF MECKLENBURG. 15 

maiden, whether princess or "ganseruadchen" or goose- 
girl. The bride was received in London with enthusiastic 
ovations. Her manners, conversation and dress were 
heralded as if she were a goddess. Perhaps my lady 
auditors w r ould like some details. Her manners were 
pronounced by no less a judge than Horace Walpole as 
" decidedly genteel." Her dress was of white satin, 
brocaded with gold, distended with enormous hoops. 
She had a stomacher of diamonds. On her head was a 
cap of finest lace, stiffened so as to resemble a butterfly, 
fastened to the front of the head by jewels. I will 
quote to you one of her speeches. When she arrived in 
sight of St. James's Palace, w r here she was to meet the 
groom, the bride turned pale. The Duchess of Hamilton 
rallied her. The princess replied, "yes, my dear duchess, 
you may laugh ; you are not going to be married, but it 
is no joke to me!" It was a tremendously exciting 
time. Horace Walpole writes, "Royal marriages, coro- 
nations and victories came tumbling over one another 
from distant parts of the globe, like the work of a lady 
romance writer. I don't know where I am. I had 
scarce found Mecklenburg Strelitz with a magnifying 
glass on the map before I was whisked to Ponclicherry. 
Then thunder go the Tower guns; behold Broglie and 
Soubrire are totally defeated by Duke Ferdinand of 
Brunswick at the battle of Minclen." The joy of this 
period and the satisfaction over this marriage extended 
to the wilds of ISTorth Carolina, and the good queen's 
names, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, were affixed, as soon 
as the news came, to a newly created county and town. 



16 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

She was a woman of noble character. She w T as a model 
of domestic virtues, and the court through her influence 
was pure in the midst of a corrupt society. And when 
our ancestors, in the angry passions of war in 1779, 
expunged from the map the hated names of Tryon and 
Bute, and when the inhabitants of this section were the 
fiercest fighters against her husband, their sw-ords sharp 
as hornet stings, they allowed the names of the good 
queen to remain as a perpetual tribute to all womanly 
virtues. 

Note the coincidence, that just as Admiral Anson 
introduced Charlotte of Mecklenburg into England as 
its Queen, so in the distant North Carolina the county 
of Anson in North Carolina political history went before 
and was usher to the county of Mecklenburg. 

It should be a warning lesson to all rulers that only 
thirteen years after this ebullition of loyal affection the 
most defiant resolves and the most spirited action against 
England's King came from those enlightened men w 7 hose 
county and tow 7 n bore the name of England's Queen. 
The chords of sentimental devotion snapped when 
strained by hard and real assaults on inherited liberties. 
With many a sigh over the sweet past, now turned into 
bitterness, our ancestors addressed themselves to the 
stern task before them. Kemp P. Battle. 



You must not expect me to speak 
Like Presidents Swain or Battle, 

But when I get to Chapel Hill 
ni make the campus rattle. 



BELLS OF CHRISTMAS. 17 



BELLS OF CHRISTMAS. 



BELLS of Christmas soon will chime, 
And their tuneful notes will fly 
From the steeples white with rime 
To the clear, star-frosted sky. 

Soon the organ pipes will blow 

Strains triumphant, loud and long, 

And the happy choir a row 

Fill the whispering church with song. 

Soon the pungent scent of pine 
Will perfume the chilly hall, 

Holly spray and cedar twine 
Precious pictures on the wall. 

Soon the Christmas fires will flare 
With a consciousness of light, 

And home windows everywhere 
Flood with golden mist the night. 

Christmas bells, prepare to ring, 

Let us have a joyful time, 
From your lofty rafters swing 

Till the angels hear you chime. 

Cricket on the poor man's hearth, 
Get you ready with your trills 

That shall sing of joy on earth 
Till his heart with laughter fills. 



18 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Elfins dancing at my side, 

Now a secret word with ye : 
On that happy eve abide 

With the children in their glee, 

And when midnight hour shall fare, 
Out each lamp of heaven blow 

And in silence fill the air 

With a tinkling shower of snow. 

John Henry Boner. 



EDUCATION. 



^ 1 ^IS education forms not the common but the un- 
A common mind. The common mind is the unedu- 
cated mind. Very few of those who consider themselves 
educated have the inherent faculties of their minds fully 
brought out. In many there are latent intellectual 
powers, unsuspected by others, and unknown to them- 
selves. That is more than a beautiful fancy, therefore, 
which runs through Gray's admired '" Elegy in a Coun- 
try Churchyard " : 

"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; 
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 
Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre." 

Addison has an ingenious and very striking compari- 
son, bearing upon the invisible forces and faculties of 
the soul. He compares the secret beauties of the soul 



IHDIAN NAMES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 19 

in an uneducated person to the statue in the unhewn 
block of marble. There it remains imprisoned and 
unseen, till the chisel of the sculptor emancipates and 
reveals it. 

Education, however, not merely discloses and develops 
the beauty of the mind, but it is an essential instrument 
of usefulness and power. This particular aspect of 
education is perhaps best illustrated in the common 
school system ; in which the design is, first, to lay the 
solid foundation of all future attainments and elegant 
ornaments. In education, the same principles should 
hold as in domestic economy. A man of sense will first 
lay in a sufficiency of articles strictly necessary to the 
use and comfort of the family. He may then, if his 
means permit, and to the extent that they permit, indulge 
his taste for the merely elegant and ornamental. So in 
education. The young man should be so thoroughly 
grounded in the elements of practical knowledge as to 
qualify him to gain a respectable living by the indus- 
trious use of his time and talents. He may then, very 
properly, seek to have such an acquaintance with litera- 
ture, science, and art, as shall render him not only a 
strong, but a shining, character, always bearing in mind 
the maxim : " 'Tis only solid bodies polish well." 

Joseph M. Atkinson. 



INDIAN NAMES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



The names of Yadkin College, and of the Catawba river, flowing 
amid its rocks and willows near us, call up the Indians whom we 



20 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

have driven from their homes. They were a branch of a powerful 
tribe — the Catawbas. As these Indians passed away to the setting 
sun they have left their musical names as the sole reminder of their 
language, their sepulchral mounds and the mouldering skeletons 
and tawdry ornaments within as the ghostly relics of their stalwart 
warriors and graceful maidens, the arrow and tomahawk heads of 
flint, the harmless survivors of their once dreaded warfare. 

YES, tW they all have passed away — 
That noble race and brave ; 
Tho* their light canoes have vanished 

From off the crested wave; 
Tho', 'mid the forests where they roved, 

There rings no hunter's shout, 
Yet their names are in our w r aters, 
And we cannot mark them out. 

Their memory liveth on our hills, 

Their baptism on our shore, 
Our everlasting rivers speak 

Their dialect of yore ! 
'Xis heard where Swannanoa pours 

Its crystal tide along; 
It sounds on Nantahala's shores 

And Yadkin swells the song; 

Where lordly Roanoke sweeps 

The symphony remains; 
And swift Catawba proudly keeps 

The echo of its strains; 
Where Tuckasegee's waters glide 

From rocky streams, 'tis heard, 



NOKTH CAROLINA. 21 

And dark Pamlico's winding tide 
Repeat the olden word ; 

Afar where nature brightly wreathed 

Fit Eden for the free, 
Along Hiawasee's bank 'tis heard 

And stately Tennessee; 
And then from where the clear, cold springs 

Flows fast the rolling Hawj 
The ancient melody still rings 

To Neuse and Waccamaw. 

Kemp P. Battle. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 



I STAND here to-day, proud to lift my voice in 
behalf of my native State. And while I honor the 
proud position of the other States of this Union, both 
north and south of us, and would not, if I could, detract 
one iota of their merited fame or just renown, still, as a 
son of North Carolina, and one who feels an honest and 
sincere pride in everything which concerns the honor, 
the welfare or the prosperity of the land that gave me 
birth, I will not be backward in declaring unto you her 
bright deeds of glory, while I have a heart to feel or a 
tongue to utter the same in your hearing. 

Let your minds for a few moments revert with me to 
the early history of the formation of this government; 
and with pleasure let us contemplate the various scenes 



22 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

in the first great struggle for independence, in which 
North Carolina took a most prominent and active part. 

In those "times which tried men's souls/' when the 
British soldiery, with fire and sword, were wasting the 
fairest portions of our beloved country — when every one 
of the old thirteen colonies felt that they "were, and of 
right ought to be, free and independent States" who of 
them all, I ask, was the first to publish boldly to the 
ears of a listening world her own solemn declaration 
and determination to be free? I am proud to say it was 
North Carolina! 

Yes, thirteen months before the memorable "Declara- 
tion of Independence" was issued at Philadelphia, on 
July 4th, 1776, North Carolina, asserting her sovereignty, 
had boldly sent forth her own immortal "Mecklenburg 
Declaration " from Charlotte, loudly proclaiming to the 
hated despots and tyrants of continental Europe her 
firm resolution to throw oif the galling yoke of bondage 
by which she was unjustly held, and, "knowing her 
rights," thenceforth "dared to maintain them"; trusting 
alone in the justness of her cause and in the strength of 
the "God of Battles" to sustain her. And nobly did 
she assert her right to independence, in the blood of her 
sons freely poured out on many a harcl-fought field of 
the Revolution, in the contest, the terrible contest, for 
liberty and honor. 

And, coming on down to later years, when war was 
again declared between this country and England in 
1812, who, I ask, was among the first in that struggle 
to send her legions forth, at her country's call "to arms," 
against the daring invaders of her sacred soil? Again 



NORTH CAROLINA. 23 

it was North Carolina! High let her name be 
inscribed on the temple of fame, and glorious be the 
dear inheritance handed down to ages yet unborn by the 
recollections of her past renown. 

I confess to an honest pride in here recounting the 
heroic deeds of my native State in the days of the past; 
and although in the early years of the past two decades 
we have seen her liberties crushed and the heel of des- 
potism lifted over her uncomplaining people, the result 
of the still later though no less noble struggle for her 
blood-bought privileges, yet grandly and proudly con- 
scious of her stern integrity, and relying on the distant 
future to vindicate her cause in the eyes of posterity, 
North Carolina to-day demands and merits the deepest 
homage and warmest affection from the hearts of her 
true and faithful sons and daughters. " Bright through 
the smouldering ashes of the past — far amid the glare of 
flashing clouds which crimson the dark horizon beyond," 
will ascend higher and yet higher to the zenith above, 
the glorious, imperishable record of her achievements, 
her honor and her glory to the wondering vision of the 
generations to come. 

Then, my friends, I repeat again that I am proud to 
raise my voice in behalf of my dear native State. Here 
may my brightest days be spent ; here my most vigorous 
energies be put forth for her prosperity and advance- 
ment; and when declining years and hoary hairs bring 
me feebly tottering to the grave, here, too, may I sleep 
my last sleep, and mingle my weary dust with the genial 
soil that gave me birth. 

William B. Harrell. 



24 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



"LET US ALL BE UP AND DOING." 



THIS world is not a shattered wreck 
Where man, sin-struck, is cast, 
His life one struggle to escape 
Eternal death at last. 

There is no death, but only change, 

Man's life's eternal force 
By God breathed in, which ev^r runs 

Its still evolving course. 

Each life is but a single voyage 

Upon Time's boundless sea, 
• A single link in one grand chain 

Extending through Eternity. 

The unspoken prayer of all mankind 

Is Ajax's prayer for light, 
But only he who labors prays 

The Christ-taught prayer aright. 

Let not your forms be "empty forms," 
But each with meaning fraught, 

To symbolize some spark of truth 
By God through Nature taught. 

Self-sacrifice is Nature's law, 
Plants live that seed may fall, 

Together all things work for good— 
Not of the one — but all. 



THE FOLLY OF COMPLAINING. 25 

Then let us each "be up and doing" 

Whatever lies at hand, 
Not idly in the world's grand mart 

Awaiting wages, stand. 

Let each revolving Christmas tide 

A Christ mass truly be, 
And life one long self-sacrifice 

For all humanity. 

Mary Bayard Clarke. 



THE FOLLY OF COMPLAINING. 



f I ^HE folly of complaining is evident from its utter 
A inutility. If complaints could rebuild the house 
consumed by fire, if complaints could gather again the 
wealth once scattered, if complaints could infuse rapidity 
into the sluggish blood and re-touch the pale, wasted 
cheek with the rich hue of health, if complaints could 
reach the ear of death and recall the loved lost ones, and 
give their lips the eloquence of love and their eyes the 
glance of affection that once thrilled us — then might a 
man complain, and his neighbors might not call it 
foolish. 

But it injures one's character to indulge in complaints. 
Without making his condition better, it destroys that 
gentleness of spirit which is so soothing in affliction, and 
deprives a man of the fortitude with which the ills of 
life should be borne. It aggravates the wounds of the 



26 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

spirit. It exaggerates the minor evils of existence. 
When grown into a habit, it makes a man a perpetual 
self-tormentor, and a source of continual vexation to his 
family and friends. And this wretched habit, growing 
with a man's years, makes him not only unhappy in 
himself and disagreeable to others, but it makes him a 
worse man, by exciting his own evil passions, and an 
injurious man, by irritating the passions of others. Its 
great sinfulness is seen further in the fact that it has its 
rise in the exceeding selfishness of the heart. Every 
thing must go as the man wishes, or he is full of bitter 
complaints. The millions of the world's population 
must be overlooked, and the world's Governor must set 
himself to study the comfort of the complainer. The 
seasons must be adapted to his convenience; the "tide in 
the affairs of men" must be turned into the channel 
which bears him on to fortune, no matter how many 
thousands are ruined by the change; and the gates of 
life and death must be opened and shut at his pleasure; 
or he complains of fortune, that is, of the providence of 
God. It is no slight degree of sinfulness to be so 
presumptuous as to call God's works and ways into 
question, without the spirit of devout solemnity and 
under the irritation of a short-sighted selfishness, and 
with the peevishness of a perverse, ill-natured, spoilt 
child. To the folly is added the great sin of ingratitude. 
But wherefore should a living man complain? Has 
he not life? and having life, has he not hope? The 
future is before him, full of promise, and may he not 
hope that he stands near the very movement in the world 



TO OUR STATE. 27 

which is to lift him up to bliss and prosperity? Has he 
not the present — a rich mine of gold beneath his feet, 
that only asks labor to spread its glories to his eyes? 
Has he not a mind within him? — a living, bounding, 
powerful principle, which survives the material changes 
around it, which leaps the tallest obstacle and flings every 
opponent aside? What may stand before his mind? 
Has he not a heart f — a heart in which fountains of 
affection are gushing up to refresh him and bless others? 
Let him clear those fountains of the rubbish of sin, and 
sweet as the waters of Paradise they will be. And — 
stripped of every outward possession, free and alone, let 
him stand in a wilderness place of this world — he is a 
man, he is alive, he is IMMOBTAL, the greatest, 
noblest, and most glorious creature that treads the earth — 
the child of time, but the heir of eternity. 

Charles F. Deems. 



>TO OUR STATE. 



ALL hail to thee, our good old State, the noblest 
of the band 
Who raised the flag of liberty in this our native land ! 
All hail to thee ! thy worthy sons were first to spurn the 

yoke ; 
The tyrant's fetters from their hands at Mecklenburg 

they broke. 
No coward foresight they possessed, on peril's brink to 

pause, 
Nor waited for a sister State to lead in freedom's cause. 



28 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

"Our lives, our fortunes," was the cry; "our honor and 

our all, 
We lay upon our country's shrine, in answer to her call," 
From every heart there rose a shout, "No longer will 

we lie 
Submissive at the tyrant's feet: we'll conquer or we'll 

die; 
For freedom and our liberties we'll brave proud 

England's host!" 
"King's Mountain," "Guilford Court House" prove it 

was no braggart's boast. 
There England found a worthy foe her far-famed steel 

had met; 
Firm as the rock our fathers stood and cross' d the 

bayonet;* 
Lock'd in the fierce embrace of steel they bravely met 

their death, 
Each bore his foeman to the ground, then yielded up 

his breath. 
Brave sons of Carolina, I bid you, in her name, 
Devote your time and talents to preserve her well-earned 

fame. 
You are scattered through the Union, and, by your ster- 
ling worth, 
Are enriching every State save that which gave you birth. 
Whatever your condition, wherever you are found, 
In the ranks of the mechanic, or as tillers of the ground, 
Among the learn'd professions, in the legislative hall, 
As sailors or as soldiers, ye excel in each and all. 



*The battle of Guilford was one of the few where bayonets were crossed. 



THE COMING OF A SUMMER DAY. 29 

For steady perseverance, for honesty and truth, 
The sons of Carolina are famous from their youth. 
Then Avhy desert your home-land where first your ardent 

soul 
Flash'd forth the fire of genius unfettered by control? 
Why leave her peaceful bosom, her rich and fertile soil, 
To seek an El Dorado, for gold to dig and toil? 
Ah ! deep beneath her surface she hideth many an ore, 
Rich gold as pure as Ophir or California's shore. 
You are greatly wanting in the noble pride of State, 
Or you would not thus desert her and leave her desolate. 
Ye youth of Carolina, I call upon you now 
To add one single jewel to the crown upon her brow. 
You are entering, from her schools, the battle-fields of 

life, 
And her fostering care has aiWd you right nobly for the 

strife ; 
Walk onward, then, to glory ; seek literary fame, 
And with the pen of history write Carolina's name. 

Mary Bayard Clarke. 



THE COMING OF A SUMMER DAY. 



CONTEMPLATE with me that daily miracle of 
nature, as it appears on these sweet June morn- 
ings — "dark summer dawns," as Tennyson finely phrases 
it, or as I witnessed it a few days past. You step forth 
from the confined air of your chamber; the first sensa- 
tion is that of delicious coolness and exhilaration ; the 



30 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

sky is without a speck or stain ;■ the stars twinkle indus- 
triously in the ebon vault, their myriad eyes gleaming 
like fire. As your questioning soul looks up in mute 
admiration, they are silent; the winds are whist; the 
woods are still ; the flowers are heavy with dew and the 
air with fragrance. In the east hangs low the decadent 
moon, a glittering silver sickle on a black velvet ground. 
As her escort a royal guard of stars appears; the golden 
lamp of Venus burns with intense and steady blaze, 
revealing her conscious beauty; her companion, the 
mighty and more distant Jupiter, with smaller but not 
less brilliant beam, while Saturn, almost eclipsed by their 
lustre, is barely seen, a point of light far away. 

But lo ! their splendors pale. Along the horizon is a 
faint glimmer of gray. You glance upward and find 
that the ebon hue of the vault is gone; the stars wax 
dim and slowly fade from view. 

"The ancient moon hangs on its nether horn 
A frighted ghost." 

The skies grow lighter and bluer. Again you turn 
your eyes to the coming morn. Streaks of light — 
" God's glorious shadow," to use Plato's fine thought — 
shoot upward to the zenith — at first colorless, then 
growing cool gray, soft pearl, with the faintest hint of 
gold and pink— the purest and most delicate of tints, 
shaded with the utmost nicety. It is the daily battle of 
light and darkness. Now a mist rises, and strips of 
fleece are seen. They seem the advancing squadrons of 
the armies of the king, planting their white banners on 
the deserted field, as the hosts of darkness sullenly retire. 



I LOVE MY "NATIVE STATE. 31 

Those white banners suddenly become rose and flame- 
colored; the whole east flushes and glows at the coming 
of her lord, and while rays of golden glory from the 
advancing splendor leap across the heavens, objects of 
the dear, familiar earth come into view — the dark forest, 
the old homestead, the open plain. At length he comes ! 
The eye of morn peeps over the eastern hills ! 

"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." 

And now what a change greets the soul ! There is a 
happy rustle of the leaves; the joyous breeze springs up 
to tell the glad w r orld of the great transformation; the 
flowers bow their sweet faces as he passes ; the marshalled 
clouds move steadily, softly onward, as if in triumph; 
there is a noise of merry music; happy birds carol in 
unrestrained glee; sounds of hope and delight fill the 
enchanted ear and thrill the soul. All is life, animation, 
beauty ! William S. Lacy. 



I LOVE MY NATIVE STATE. 



1LOVE thee, fairest of all lands, my home, 
From lonely Hatteras where the breakers come 
To where reared in the heavens, stands thy Dome, 
North Carolina ! 

The world is loth to give thee what is just; 
Upon thy bosom sleeps, unmourned, the dust 
That ever will be a nation's sacred trust, 
North Carolina ! 



32 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

When others faltered, yearning to be free, 
Then who first dared to strike for liberty, 
A foe whose empire stretched o'er every sea? 
North Carolina ! 

Were I as loud-voiced as Euroclydon, 
I'd tell to earth's far ends in thunder-tone 
That others wear the laurels thou hast won, 
North Carolina ! 

For men to mock thee sets my soul on fire, 
Who would deride thee would deride the sire 
That braved earth's storms for food and attire, 
North Carolina ! 

Till wizened Time shall pen his latest dates, 
Long as the sea chafes at thy granite gates, 
Thy valliant deeds shall live, thou State of States, 
North Carolina ! 

H. J. Stockard. 



THE AGE- OF GOLD. 



THIS is the age of gold, but not the golden age. 
Longfellow and Bryant have fallen asleep, Dickens 
and Bayard Taylor are gone, Tennyson is in his dotage, 
and Holmes and Lowell are close upon the mystic maze. 
And where are the great speakers who once stirred the 
Anglo-Saxon nations to their core? A few keen, epigram- 
matic debaters in Congress, a single patriotic, fiery-souled 



THE AGE OF GOLD. 33 

leader in old Spain, and the imperishable Gladstone in 
the British Isles, are almost the only surviving wizards 
of the tongue, upon whose thrilling utterances of speech 
the growing thought-power of this age is waiting. In 
the meantime every sanctity of human hope and life is 
consecrated to money. The gods of material progress 
are set up by every hearth, and their priests are made to 
sacrifice at every altar. The missionaries of this false 
religion have come out of the golden cities of the North, 
and have swept our simple hero worship away as by a 
tempest. The boy's ambition now is to make money, and 
still to make money. Jay Gould and not Daniel Webster 
is the ideal of his waking dreams. The old syren voices 
of eloquence, which once sounded from many a moon- 
lighted grove charm him no more. Honor, fame, the 
imperial masters of the monarch mind, are traditions like 
those of Delphos and the Delian shore. Where will all 
this end? Are we to surrender the brightest and noblest 
products of our history that we may become a nation of 
money-makers? Are Chapel Hill, Princeton and Yale to 
be turned into workshops and arsenals, that the utilita- 
rians may work their will upon the education of the 
future? Heaven forbid. Let us rather make our mate- 
rial growth the servant of our necessities. Let us main- 
tain the empire of the brain over all the selfish cunning 
of trade and the athletic achievements of muscle. And 
the Republic shall soon come to be so great in its litera- 
ture and sciences as it is in its territory, its liberties 
and its valor. John S. Long. 



34 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

"WHAT IS CHAFF TO THE WHEAT?' 



IT is necessary for its protection, its development and 
its "fruit unto perfection": so is the problem of evil 
in the world related to man's highest good here and 
hereafter. The lesson of the natural and the moral 
wheat-field and harvest is one. The God of Nature is 
also the God of Grace. He who made the darkness 
makes also the light. They are correlative terms. The 
one is necessary to any conception of, and the very being 
of the other; and the deeper the darkness the greater 
the illumination of the light. The brilliancy of the day 
is born of the darkness of the night. "Heaviness may 
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." It 
is the darkness which reveals to us the universe. If 
there were no night, how should we ever see the stars? 
And so out of the dark and gloomy background of sin 
the light of the gospel shines forth. If sin had never 
entered into the world, there could have been no Saviour 
from sin. 

If man had never offended a just and holy God, how 
could he ever enter into the depths of that sweet saying, 
"God is love?" If there had been no broken tablets of 
the law at Sinai, there would have been no such words 
of comfort from Calvary, "Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do." "If there had been no 
discords here on earth," as has been beautifully said, 
" the anthem of heaven would have been sung to only 
one note, and all its sweetest harmonies would have been 
wanting." 



35 



Chaff is ever with the wheat in the field of the world. 
Evil is ever about us and of us, and will be to the end. 
We may not be borne to heaven on "flowery beds of 
ease." In the moral and spiritual world as in the 
natural and physical, the process of threshing is neces- 
sary, and it is severe. To gain and enjoy the victory, the 
valiant soldier must fight and "endure hardness." "No 
cross, no crown." 

"What is the chaff to the wheat?" It is necessary: 
and before we are made meet for the heavenly garner, 
the severe and painful process of winnowing is also 
necessary. The Apostle has expounded this parable of 
all nature in one word : " We must through much tribu- 
lation enter into the kingdom of heaven." 

M. M. Maeshall. 



REPLY TO "GRAY'S ELEGY." 



NO ocean "gem of purest ray serene" 
Is planted in the deep to perish there; 
No flower on earth "is born to blush unseen," 
"And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

The eye of man may ne'er behold that gem 
"The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear"; 

His keenest sense ne'er note the sweet perfume 
That rose distills upon "the desert air"; 

Still not one sparkle of that gem is lost, 

And not one breath of fragrance from the rose, 



36 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

For round about them are a countless host 
Who in their splendor revel or repose. 

Those "dark, unfathomed caves" of ocean deep 
Are not so dark as poets sometimes write; 

There myriads moving, mingling monsters creep, 
And doubtless to them all that "gern" is bright. 

Within the caverns of the grains of sand 
That lie around that desert rose's feet, 

A thousand living things, fed by God ? s hand, 
Find joyous homes. To them that rose is sweet. 

And still, if not a creature wandered where 
That rose is blooming or that gem is laid, 

The great Creator, God, who placed them there, 
Would take delight in works His hands had made. 



•to 1 



Think not thy worth and work are all unknown 
If no partial penman paint thy praise; 

Man may not see nor mind, but God will own 
Thy worth and labor, thy thoughts and ways. 

The desert rose, though never seen by man, 
Is nurtured with a care divinely good; 

The ocean gem, beneath the rolling main, 
Is ever brilliant in the eyes of God. 

Needham Bryan Cobb. 



I am a little boy, scarcely three feet high, 
But all our great men were once as small as I. 



OUR COUNTRY — PAST AND PRESENT. 37 



OUR COUNTRY— PAST AND PRESENT. 



WHAT a splendid monument to civilization is this 
Republican government of ours! here, where 
every man is free to exercise his religious and political 
opinions without the fear of molestation ! Freedom of 
speech and freedom of action, together with an humble 
trust in a Divine Providence, make us what we are. Go 
back, if you please, one hundred years ago, and see the 
pioneers of this Republic struggling for independence. 
Tell me not that it was physical strength which overcame 
our enemies and brought victory to our banners ! All 
was dark and gloomy; the horizon was like the black- 
ness of night, without a single star to inspire hope; the 
long looked-for morning refused to dawn, and nothing 
but an invisible faith in the God of Battles cheered and 
comforted the true and noble hearts of the Patriots of 
the Revolution ! They fought on, struggled on, and 
prayed on, in famine sometimes, and frequently in despair 
they braved all, and suffered all, until finally the light 
began to break upon the long and weary night, the 
morning came, wider and brighter the light grows, 
farther and farther it reaches, until its brightness illu- 
minates the Heavens, and the joyous trumpet of freedom 
proclaimed a new-born Republic. 

From a few thousand scattered settlers we have grown 
to be a nation of fifty millions of people: the forests 
that were once vocal with screaming: birds and howling: 
beasts have disappeared before the march of progress and 



38 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

civilization; aud splendid cities and cloud-piercing spires 
have taken their places. The rivers upon whose bosom 
quietly floated the canoe of the Red-man are now the 
highways of trade and commerce, and the songs of the 
boatmen are heard upon their waters. The steam-car 
lad-en with the traffic of the world traverses our utmost 
limits, our country is girdled with electricity, and from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, wealth, refinement and culture 
prevail in the greatest degree. 

Our mountains and our skies, our valleys and our 
rivers are fit objects for the painter's brush and the poet's 
lyre; here genius is born; our statesmen, poets, orators 
and warriors arrest the world in wrapt amazement, and 
mankind in breathless wonder read the story of their 
grand achievements. 

For nearly a century, like a great light in the world's 
firmament, our government had been the wonder of 
nations and the pride of its people. 

But, suddenly, its majestic march is checked, the can- 
non's roar and the sound of the trumpets of war are 
heard in the land, the heavens are ablaze with the lurid 
glare of battle, and two flags and two armies, of one 
tongue and one people, are struggling for the mastery. 
The land is drenched in blood, homes are made desolate, 
orphans aud widows cry aloud for bread, until the human 
heart grows sick and weary. 

The end comes. The Southern flag is furled forever 
within the limits of this beautiful land, and the flag 
which floated at Guilford Court House before the guns 
of Cornwallis again becomes the flag of one people and 



OUR COUNTRY — PAST AND PRESENT. 39 

one country. Of that fierce and bitter struggle I do not 
care to speak: of how the pride and hope of our South- 
land were victims to war's cruel fate; of the glorious 
death of our soldiers who sleep upon the bloody field, 
the blue in one grave, the gray in the other — yet there 
is one sentiment which should animate the heart of every 
patriot, and that is this: "Let there be peace in the 
land." 

Sectional feeling and bitterness are rapidly disappear- 
ing from every part of our country, the passions of war 
are subsiding, and the North and the South are begin- 
ning to understand each other. Their interests of trade 
and of commerce are the one dependent upon the other, 
and the time is not far away when the dead of both 
sections and of both armies shall be regarded as the dead 
of a common country and of one people. May the day 
speedily come when these war passions and prejudices, 
which, like an evil bird are heard in some parts of the 
country, will pass away forever; when the government 
of our fathers may have a home and a habitation in 
every part of our land and an abiding place in the hearts 
of all the people. 

The time is propitious for seed-sowing and the harvest 
will come on apace. The coming generations must be 
taught to love their country and its institutions. The 
young men of the land are for peace. The gray-haired 
fathers in Israel who are bent with age and with the 
cares of life, counsel peace. The mothers and maidens 
of America pray for peace. Yet, there are those who 
would open the graves of our battle-slain, and fight the 



40 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

war over again. Thank God they are not the men, 
however, who saw their comrades fall, who shrouded 
them in bloody blankets, and over their honored graves 
fired the military salute, but (hey are those who stood 
afar off, with neither the smoke of battle in their nostrils, 
nor the smell of fire upon their garments. Upon all 
such let the patriotic people of the country, regardless of 
party or locality, turn their backs. They are neither 
friends to the government, nor promoters of the national 
peace. In this hour of governmental tranquility, when 
the administration, discarding all sectional differences 
and localities, seeks to blot out all lines of war and dis- 
cord, and administer public affairs for the promotion of 
the public good, let our people with one accord unite 
in upholding so just and patriotic a policy. The Chief 
Magistrate who would thus encourage domestic peace, 
ensure national happiness, and preserve the equality of 
the States under the Constitution, is a blessing to the 
people, an honor to the nation, and a benefactor of his 
race. 

Regarding the possibilities of our country as too 
infinite, and the genius of our free institutions as too 
precious to the liberty-loving of mankind, he would not 
neglect the one or impair the other for the sake of politi- 
cal advantage. Knowing that man to be an enemy of 
society and national advancement who would estrange 
the people of one section from the people of the other, 
he stands upon the heights of national patriotism, over- 
looking all sectionalism, seeing no North, no South, no 
East, no West, no glory which is not national, no destiny 



LIFE. 41 

which is Dot common, no county but the Union. Such 
a man in any age and in any country deserves the appro- 
bation of his fellows, the confidence of mankind, and an 
imperishable name in his country's history. 

John N. Staples. 



LIFE, 



LIFE is mingled bliss and care, 
Vicissitudes combining; 
Alternating hope and fear 
With dark and silver lining. 

This life cannot all sunshine be, 
Tho' every whim attend it; 

We never know, nor can we see 
What circumstance may end it. 

It little recks which way we fall 
In calm or tempest driven; 

Provided every impulse — all 
Point upward, home to heaven. 

If on the dark side we would look 
For darker things behind it, 

Experience, the unsealed book, 
Proclaims we're sure to find it. 

Whatever phase of life we view, 
There's never full completeness; 

There's light and shade and joyous hue 
Commingled with all sweetness. 



42 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Too oft we pine at ills unseen, 

And from the future borrow; 
And load ourselves till we careen 

"With what may be to-morrow. 

Thus with a world of care we hedge 

Ourselves, aud little know it; 
By ever crossing^ o'er the bridge 

Before we have come to it. 

J. W. Harrington. 



LIBERTY AND LAW. 



THE GREEK, THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON. 



THE Greek was the great champion of liberty. He 
was not a conqueror, for he loved liberty more 
than power. He treasured an ideal of individual liberty 
superior to government. He elevated the citizen above 
the city, the city above the State, the State above the 
nation. In the conflict of races this ideal must fail. A 
race that will live must organize its power. The weak- 
ness of power not organized was seen in the easy downfall 
of the Greeks. Too stubborn devotion to the freedom 
of the individual produced the slavery of the race. 
Three centuries after Leonidas and the " Three Hun- 
dred" had immortalized Thermopylae, Roman soldiers 
were kicking statues on the streets of Corinth, and the 
land of Demosthenes was a Roman province! 



LIBERTY AND LAW. 43 

The Roman was the great champion of law. His 
ideal was a centralized government, unlimited in power, 
ruling the world. He surrendered his individual liberty 
in order that Rome might rule. Wherever he conquered 
lie planted Roman colonies and established Roman laws; 
he taught the conquered to speak his language and wor- 
ship his gods. But, after destroying the liberty of other 
races, he discovered too late that his own was gone. He 
had wielded the two-edged sword of despotism and slain 
himself. 

The strength of every government is founded in the 
liberty of all its citizens — liberty of thought, liberty of 
speech, liberty of labor. It is founded in the golden 
mean between Roman obedience and Greek independence, 
for neither was the true conception of liberty. The 
strongest laws secure liberty to all; the surest liberty is 
the reign of law. Liberty is the strength of law and 
law is the bulwark of liberty. The Greek was the great 
champion of liberty; the Roman was the great cham- 
pion of law. It was reserved for another race to con- 
ceive the nobler ideal of law devoted to liberty — of 
liberty submissive to law. It was reserved for the 
Teuton, who, "while the Greek was beautifying the earth 
with his art and the Roman was building his empire of 
force, wandered, unknown and naked, among the beasts 
of the forests." It was reserved for the Teuton to teach 
the world constitutional liberty and government by the 
people, to construct those eternal charters of freedom, 
the Magna Charta of England and the Constitution of 
the American Union. It was reserved for the Teuton, 



44 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

by the Protestant Reformation, to free the soul from the 
tyranny of priests and secure for all ages liberty of con- 
science. It was the Teuton that entered the secret 
chambers of nature and made the giant forces his slaves. 
It was the Teuton that ribbed the earth with steel and 
sent the engine plowing through the mountain. It was 
the Teuton that gave speech to the wire and whispered 
thought around the globe swifter than the voices of the 
morning. It is the Teuton that has given to war a Lee, 
a Grant and a Wellington ; to science, a Newton and a 
Humboldt; to literature, Shakespeare; to humanity, 
Luther and Washington. 

To-day the Teuton rules. His throne in the Old 
World is England and Germany ; his home in the New 
World is our Northern Continent. He is king by the 
divine right of a noble manhood. He has lifted civiliza- 
tion to a higher plane of thought and action, where he 
stands towering above other races. 

George T. Winston. 



CAROLINA. 



TELL me, ye winds, if e'er ye rest 
Your wings on fairer land, 
Save when near Araby the blest, 

Ye scent its fragrant strand? 
Tell me, ye Spirits of the Air, 
Know ye a region anywhere, 
By night or day that can compare 
With Carolina, bright and fair? 



NORTH CAROLINA. 45 



Her feet she plants on Ocean's plane; 

Her arms the Hills embrace; 
In Mountain's snow, or mist, or rain, 

She laves her smiling face : 
Turns then to greet Aurora's dawn. 
Ere yet, on sea, the day is born ; 
And Stars that die at birth of morn. 
Kiss her "Good-by" — and then are gone 



Fair Ceres smiles o'er waving fields, 

On hill-side and on plane; 
The generous soil abundance yields, 

With sunshine and with rain : 
Tell me, ye rivers, creeks and rills, 
Know ye a land the farmer tills, 
That larger barns and granaries fills, 
Than Carolina's vales and hills? 

Beneath her soil, just hidden, lie 

Treasures of priceless w 7 orth, 
Which in their value well may vie 

With richest mines of earth. 
Then list ! as blithe Hygeia sings : 
"Long life and health are in our springs! 
Drink deep; each draught new vigor brings, 
Backward old Time shall turn his wings, 
Death lose his stings!" 

On Mecklenburg's historic ground, 

All hail ! our Charter-Tree! 
Where Freedom's voice was first to sound 

The watch-word, "Man is free!" 



46 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

That clarion note the nation caught, 
Our sires, emboldened by the thought, 
All that they had and were they brought, 
For altars, homes and honor fought, 
And freedom bought. 

Later, when Janus oped his door, 

Bade blood and carnage swell, 
Till swollen rivers had no shore, 

And Freedom shrieked "Farewell!" — 
Tell me, ye sutlers, who are they, 
Clad in their faded, tattered grey, 
With deafening yell, rush to the fray, 
Nor pause till they have won the day? 
"Tar-Heels" are they! 

James A. Delke. 



TRUE NORTH CAROLINIANS. 



NORTH Carolinians cannot forget the past. Around 
their history cluster memories of lofty patriotism 
and unsullied honor, of noble daring and high emprise. 
We do not believe that under heaven's canopy there 
dwell a people who are more heartily devoted to civil 
and religious freedom than are our people. They know 
well what sufferings and trials were encountered before 
freedom was established within our borders. They 
remember Liberty's birth-hour, amid perils and dark- 
ness — how she was born literally on an open field of 



TKUE NORTH CAROLINIANS. 47 

battle and blood, amid hissing bullets and dying groans; 
they remember how fiery storms beat long on her un- 
sheltered and helpless childhood; they remember how, 
for one hundred years, she has been the guardian angel 
of the Republic; that under her beneficent protection 
and favor the thirteen infant colonies have grown into 
thirty-eight giant States! Remembering these things, 
the people of North Carolina will cleave to her as a 
mother cleaves to her first-born, through peril and storm. 
Her beautiful tresses may be somewhat dishevelled, her 
rich and gorgeous robes may be somewhat soiled — even 
her fair and lovely face may be somewhat blackened and 
scarred by violence and war; but she is still lovely, im- 
mortal in her youth. Hope sits still upon her helmet, 
singing its merry song, and a sweet and benignant calm 
rests upon that eye that a few years ago flashed with 
the battle-light of victory. North Carolinians must 
cultivate a love of State as well as love of country. 
They are in every way identified with the progress and 
glory of their common country, and they are keeping a 
lively step to the music of the Union. It is their sol- 
emn duty to be true to the Constitution of the fathers. 
That sacred instrument is the sheet-anchor of the peo- 
ple's hope and liberties, civil and religious. If it is 
violated, in spirit or letter, for any purpose whatever, 
it opens up the flood-gates that may turn in upon the 
country a deluge of rain. The safety of the country 
rests upon the reign of law. That splendid structure, 
the Constitution, reared by the consummate genius of 
our forefathers, and made sacred with their tears and 



48 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

prayers and sacrifices and sufferings, must not be over- 
thrown and destroyed. 

T. B. Kingsbury. 



THE REVIEW OF OUR DEAD. 



?^~1P^WAS night. The stars shone bright, 

A And wrapt in spectral glow the silent world: 
Before the rising winds the clouds were whirled, 
Like phantoms weird from out the western skies; 

The myriad eyes, 
That from those boundless regions sentry kept, 

In darkness slept ! 

Below, with dismal flow 
The mighty river rolled the hills between; 
The boding night- wind swept its hands unseen 
Across the solemn harp-strings of the pines, 

And down their lines 
The spirit-echoes of the anthem wound, 

A ghost of sound ! 

A shade, in mist arrayed, 
Came in the winds; his beard streamed in the night; 
His gray coat 'round him closely wrapt; his white 
Steed shod with silence : in his dusky hand, 

A sabre; and, 
As distant thunders on our slumbers fall, 

He made his call: — 



THE REVIEW OF OUR DEAD. 49 

"Awake, dead Armies ! Shake 
Lethean slumbers off! The ancient chains 
Of Death asunder break, and from your plains 
Of glory march ! Oblivion, unbar thy gloomy gates; 

The State of States 
Calls from thy shadowy bourne her children home!" 

They come — they come ! 

A sound that shook the ground 
Went forth through earth. 'Twas like the hollow roar 
Of cannons dying in the hills; and o'er 
Night's broad expansions swept the trumpet's tone ! 

Blent with the moan 
Of winds, soft strains of martial music stole 

Into the soul ! 

Along the vale they throng 
As clouds across the moon at midnight roam, 
Dark, shuddering volumes — fleecy scuds — they come; 
And down into the valley's awful hush, 

On, on they rush ! 
The vision raised his blade, and waved them on 

With, "Haste, the dawn!" 

And ranks swept on. Phalanx 
On phalanx pressed down through the misty vale; 
Battalion on battalion; riders pale 
On dim, mysterious chargers hurried past 

Down in that vast 
And silent-moving pageant of the dead, 
With muffled tread ! 
3 



50 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

The form upon his arm 
Then bent his head ; and when the mystic band 
Far in the pine-wood ceased, across the land 
Went forth the cry of children, and the moan 

Of widows lone, 
Lamenting for the ones that glad the door 
Of home no more ! 

H. J. Stockard. 



HATTERAS. 



THE Wind King from the North came down 
Nor stopped by river, mount, or town; 
But, like a boisterous god at play, 
Resistless, bounding on his way, 
He shook the lake and tore the wood, 
And flapped his wings in merry mood: 
Nor furled them, till he spied afar 
The white caps flash on Hatteras Bar, 
Where fierce Atlantic landward bowls, 
O'er treacherous sands and hidden shoals. 

He paused, then wreathed his horn of cloud 

And blew defiance long and loud : — 

"Come up, come up, thou torrid god 

That rulest the Southern sea! 

Ho! lightning-eyed and thunder-shod, 

Come, wrestle here with me! 

As tossest thou the tangled cano^ 

I'll hurl thee o'er the boiling main !" 



HATTER AS. ■ 51 



The angry heavens hung dark and still, 
Like Arctic night on Hecla's hill; 
The mermaids sporting on the waves, 
Affrighted, fled to coral caves; 
The billow checked its curling crest, 
And, trembling, sank to sudden rest, 
All ocean stilled its heaving breast. 

Reflected darkness weird and dread, 
An inky plain the waters spread — 
So motionless, since life was fled. 
Amid this elemental lull, 
When nature died, and death lay dull — 
As though itself was sleeping there — 
Becalmed upon that dismal flood, 
Ten fated vessels idly stood, 
And not a timber creaked ! 
Dim silence held each hollow hull, 
Save when some sailor in that night 
Oppressed with darkness and despair, 
Some seaman, groping for the light, 
Rose up and shrieked ! 

They cried like children lost and lorn : 
" O Lord, deliver while you may ! 
Sweet Jesus, drive this gloom away ! 
Forever fled, O lovely day ! 
I would that I were never born V 
For stoutest souls were terror-thrilled, 
And warmest hearts with horror chilled. 



52 



THE SOUTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

"Come up, come up, thou torrid god, 

Thou lightning-eyed and thunder-shod, 

And wrestle here with me!" 

? Twas heard and answered: " Lo ! I come from azure 

Carribee, 
To drive thee cowering to thy home, 
And melt its walls of frozen foam ! ?? 
From every isle and mountain dell, 
From plains of pathless chapparel, 
From tide-built bars, where sea-birds dwell, 
He drew his lurid legions forth, 
And sprang to meet the white-plumed North. 

Can mortal tongue in song convey 
The fury of that fearful fray? 
How ships were splintered at a blow — 
Sails shivered into shreds of snow, 
And seamen hurled to death below ! 
Two gods commingling bolt and blast, 
The huge waves at each other cast, 
And bellowed o'er the raging w r aste; 
Then sped like harnessed steeds afar 
That drag a shattered battle-car 
Amid the midnight din of war ! 

False Hatteras ! when the cyclone came, 
Thy waves leapt up with hoarse acclaim, 
And ran and wrecked yon argosy ! 
Fore'er nine sank! That lone hulk stands 
Embedded in thy yellow sands — 
A hundred hearts in death there stilled, 
And yet its ribs, with corpses filled, 



HATTERAS. 53 

Are now caressed by thee ! 
Smile on, smile on, thou watery hell, 
And toss those skulls upon thy shore; 
The sailor's widow knows thee well; 
His children beg from door to door, 
And shiver, while they strive to tell 
How thou hast robbed the wretched poor ! 

Yon lipless skull shall speak for me: — 
" This is Golgotha of the sea, 
And its keen hunger is the same 
In winter's frost, or summer flame. 
When life was young, adventure sweet, 
I came with Walter Raleigh's fleet, 
But here my scattered bones have lain 
And bleached for ages by the main. 
Though lonely once, strange folk have come, 
Till peopled is my barren home. 

" Enough are here, O heed the cry, 
Ye white-winged strangers sailing by ! 
The bark that lingers on this wave 
We find its smiling but a grave. 
Then, tardy mariner, turn and flee, 
A myriad wrecks are on thy lee ! 
With swelling sail and sloping mast, 
Accept kind Heaven's propitious blast ! 
Oh, ship, sail on ! oh, ship, sail fast, 
Until, Golgotha's quicksands pass'd, 
Thou gainest the open sea at last!" 

Joseph W. Holden. 



54 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

THE AMERICAN EXPLORER. 



MAN is a roving animal ; and, though fond of home 
and its social enjoyments, yet he loves to visit 
"other fields and pastures new/' 

Every age has had its noted traveler, who has brought 
home an account of his voyages and thrilling adven- 
tures; and every nation has had its representative in the 
list of wandering worthies. Even the phlegmatic Ger- 
man has been seen quietly smoking his pipe on the 
summit of the pyramid of Cheops, sending forth the 
curling wreaths of smoke to float over the verdant valley 
of the historic Nile and mingle with the mists that rise 
from its placid bosom. The lively Frenchman has been 
found chattering on the hoary peak of Mount Sinai, and 
talking gaily of the latest fashions from Paris — on the 
very spot where Moses stood when he delivered the 
oracles of Heaven to the descendants of Abraham. And 
the burly Englishman, not content with the beautiful 
landscapes and soft-flowing streams of his own "Merrie 
England," wanders to distant lands and' boasts of the 
"Lion of England" in the presence of foreign kings and 
potentates. But of all wanderers, the restless American 
is the most untiring and energetic. Though living in a 
country abounding in all that is beautiful and majestic 
in nature, where the waters of Niagara thunder down 
their irresistible torrent, where volcanoes rock the solid 
earth, where gold and silver and precious stones reward 
the toil of the miner; in fine, where all that can please 



THE AMERICAN EXPLORER, 00 

the eye and gratify a taste for the sublime and beautiful 
are scattered broadcast over the land, he leaves all these 
and thirsts for other scenes. 

Is there a spot of earth which the foot of an American, 
has never pressed? The open polar sea, whose borders 
are frozen up in an eternal winter, flashed its bright 
waters first to the delighted gaze of Elisha Kent Kane. 
The irrepressible son of Columbia stands before the 
Emperor of all China and tells the "brother of the 
sun and moon" that there is a nation in the far distant 
west, across the broad waters, that is farther advanced 
in the arts and sciences than the inhabitants of the Celes- 
tial Empire; he visits the Arctic island of Spitzbergen 
and lays bare the beds of ivory that contain the remains 
of elephants wdiich wandered in those regions thousands 
of years before; he penetrates the jungles of India and 
attacks the roval tiger in his native thickets; he tra- 
verses the sandy deserts of Africa and astonishes the 
Bedouin Arabs, those sons of the burning zone, with his 
fortitude and endurance. Even Iceland, that lonely isle 
of the northern sea, has attractions for the American. 
He is familiar with its rugged landscape, its queer people, 
Mt. Hecla and its belching fires, and the boiling springs 
of Geyser. On the shores of the South Sea islands he 
dives for coral and pearl, and tells wonderful stories of 
his sports with the mermaids of the tropic latitudes. 

The condor of the South American Andes, as he sits 
perched above the clouds upon a crag w 7 here rests eternal 
snow, looks down upon our restless traveler. Burning 
sun nor polar snows, foaming rivers nor raging oceans, 



56 THE ^"ORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

mountain heights nor deep ravines, e'er stop for a moment 
the onward career of the American explorer. Impulsive, 
curious and determined, he circumnavigates the earth 
with a settled intention to master all its difficulties, to 
penetrate all its secrets, or perish in the attempt. 

Richard H. Lewis. 



AN ANGEL IN THE MARBLE. 



AS block of marble met the glance 
Of Donatelli's eyes, 
They brightened in their solemn depths, 
Like meteor-lighted skies. 

"Fll hew an angel from this stone," 

The gifted sculptor said, 
"And fashion it like unto one 

Now numbered with the dead." 

No sooner thought, than chisel bright 

The shapeless mass assailed, 
And blow on blow, from morn till night, 

The angel form unveiled. 

Soon brow was carved, alive with thought, 

Two speaking eyes outshone; 
And as the master sharply wrought, 

A smile broke through the stone. 



AN ANGEL IN THE MARBLE. 57 

Now o'er the stately bust the hair 

Clusters in graceful rings, 
And inch by inch is slowly freed 

The sweep of half- furled wings. 

Thus mallet deft and chisel keen 

The marble fetters shed, 
And where the shapeless block had been, 

An angel stood instead ! 

These blows that smite and pangs that pierce 

This shrinking heart of mine, 
Say, are they not the Master's Tools, 

Forming a work Divine? 

This hope that crumbles at my feet, 

This joy that mocks and flies, 
Say, are they not the clogs that keep 

My spirit from the skies? 

Sculptor of Souls! I lift to Thee, 

Encumbered heart and hands, 
Spare not the chisel; set me free 

From these enslaving bands. 

Teach me to know that every ache 

That draws my thoughts to Thee 
Is but a proof that Thou wilt make 

An Angel thus of me! 

George H. Gorman. 



58 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



WHAT THE PRESS HAS DONE FOR NORTH 
CAROLINA. 



WHAT nobler theme could be suggested than the 
Press — the mighty engine that more than any 
other power under God has served to spread the Gospel 
of Christ throughout the world, has brightened every 
dark spot upon the globe with the rays of the light of 
knowledge, has carried to the humblest cot as well as to 
the stately home the record of the deeds of noble men, 
the thoughts of the wisest and the best of earth? Do 
not ask me what it has done. What has it not done? 

Knowledge is power, and it has brought knowledge 
within the reach of all. The result has been an uplifting 
of the human race such as could not have been attained 
by any other means. The clicking of the bits of metal 
in the printer's hand is a music that is daily heard 
around the world and that will last as long as the cen- 
turies. The white sheets passed through the presses of 
the publisher are wings on which the burning w r ords, 
the ideas fresh from the mental alchemy of those in the 
fore-front of the battle of life, are borne to the ends of 
the earth. 

Man has in type a vehicle of thought that cannot be 
rivaled in usefulness or convenience. His possibilities 
of influence, with the power it gives him, cannot be meas- 
ured. The value of the Press to the world at large is far 
beyond estimate. What it has done for North Carolina 
is great in proportion. 



THE PRESS AND NORTH CAROLINA. 59 

The State of our love and our pride is rich in natural 
gifts beyond the fables of antiquity. There are riches 
of the air, of the soil, of the forest and of the waters. 
These have been in great part hidden from the eye, 
locked up by the Creator for the use of His children. 
The Press of the State has brought them from their 
places of concealment and displayed them to the admira- 
tion of all men. The Press of the State has turned them 
into gold, and so brought wealth to their possessors. 
The material welfare of the State to-day is largely due 
to the ceaseless efforts of those who pen with patriotic 
zeal the State's great natural advantages. 

But the Press soars far above the realm of material 
things only. Its aims are higher than the level of that 
which perishes. It seeks to ennoble the mind, to raise the 
aspirations, to broaden the sympathies, until humanity 
shall again approach its first estate and be enabled to 
grasp the eternal verities. The State Press has from the 
earliest period applauded the good, condemned the evil, 
teemed with wholesome lessons of morality. It has en- 
forced the doctrines of civil liberty, maintained the 
principles of equity and justice, dwelt upon the impor- 
tance of a constitutional form of government, and urged 
all the virtues that tend to happiness and contentment. 

It has preserved the great deeds of North Carolina's 
sons done on the field of battle, in the forum, on the 
bench, at the bar, in the path of the physician, in diplo- 
macy, in science, and presented them as bright examples 
to our youth. It has thus raised up standards of en- 
deavor than which man needs no loftier. It has quick- 



60 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

ened the intelligence of the whole State, raised the ambi- 
tion of every section, shed the light of information on 
every mountain side, on every plain, on the shore of 
every bay. It has told of the world's best work daily 
in every hamlet, at every fireside. It has opened the 
minds, brightened the ideas, deepened the feelings of all 
our people. 

When the sails of European adventurers first whitened 
the waters of our sea-like sounds none would have dared 
to predict the pride and pomp of the power and pros- 
perity with which we are now familiar. The stately cities, 
the beautiful towns, the well-tilled fields of to-day could 
not have been imagined. The comforts and conveniences 
of our civilization could not have been dreamed of. 

We have a Commonwealth standing in all essential 
particulars among the first of the fair sisterhood of our 
Union. The Press has done more than any other agency 
to place her there. It has made us majestic among the 
peoples of the earth. Above all, it has made us fear 
God, honor authority and love the home — that spot 
about which cluster all the holiest and tenderest senti- 
ments of which we are capable. 

Without the Press the world would have remained in 
semi- barbarism. Without its wonderful influence our 
State would still be sleeping the sleep of Rip Van 
Winkle. As it is, behold her — dear old North Caro- 
lina ! One of the brightest stars in the political constel- 
lation of America, which is the most splendid sight in 
the heavens of the student of Government. And her 
brilliance must be largely ascribed to the Press. 

James Iredell McRee. 



JOHN'S FIRST SPEECH. 61 



JOHN'S FIRST SPEECH. 



DON'T think I'll make as great a speech 
As Badger, Graham, Vance; 
Perhaps, some day, their fame I'll reach 
If I but have a chance. 

But standing here before you now 

I'll do the best I can ; 
And when I'm through will make my bow 

Just like a little man. 

My speech is very short, you see, — 

And soon I will retire; — 
If other speakers would, like me, 

Be brief, you would not tire. 

Thus they may each a lesson learn, 

The teacher, though, is small; 
And now I hope my speech will earn 

Approval from you all. H. 



Welcome, dear friends, one and all, 
To our pleasant school to-day; 

We are glad to have you call 
And hear what we have to say. 



62 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

ALAMANCE. 



NO stately column marks the hallow'd place 
Where silent sleeps, unum'd, their sacred dust: 
The first free martyrs of a glorious race, 

Their fame a people's wealth, a nation's trust. 

The rustic ploughman, at the early morn, 

The yielding furrow turns with heedless tread; 

Or tends with frugal care the springing corn, 
Where tyrants conquered and where heroes bled. 

Above their rest the golden harvest waves, 
The glorious stars stand sentinels on high, 

While in sad requiem, near their turfless graves, 
The winding river murmurs, mourning, by. 

No stern ambition waved them to the dead, — 
In Freedom's cause they nobly dared to die — 

The first to conquer, or the first to bleed, 

God and their country's right their battle cry. 

But holier watchers here their vigils keep 
Than storied* urn or monumental stone — 

For Law and Justice guard their dreamless sleep, 
And Plenty smiles above their bloody home. 

Immortal youth shall crown their deathless fame, 
And as their country's glories shall advance, 

Shall brighter blaze, o'er all the earth, thy name, 
Thou first-fought field of Freedom, Alamance. 

S. W. Whiting. 



PATRIOTISM. 63 



PATRIOTISM. 



PATRIOTISM with an American is a noun per- 
sonal. It is the American himself and something 
over. He loves America as he loves himself. He loves 
her for herself and for himself — because she is America 
and everything besides. He never gets acclimated else- 
where; he never loses citizenship to the "old home." 
The right of expatriation is a pure abstraction to him. 
He may breathe in France, but he lives in America. 
His treasure is here, and his heart also. If he looks at 
the Delta of the Nile it reminds him of the Mississippi 
swamps. He views the dome of St. Paul's with an in- 
creased respect for his Capitol at Washington, and listens 
to the eloquence of Gladstone, or the fiery utterances of 
Lord Randolph Churchill with a longing desire to hear 
our Ransom, or Fowle, or Vance. He is nothing if not 
patriotic. 

This inherent trait in the character of the native 
American is not less conspicuous in that of her adopted 
sons. The £migr6 from France, warm and enthusiastic, 
steps from the deck of the ship which bore him from 
his home, becomes imbued with the American ideas, 
assimilates himself to us and is henceforth a French- 
American. The dweller on the Mediterranean, where 
the warm Southern breezes fan him to slumber, breathes 
the healthful and invigorating air of Coney Island, and 
washes off all traces of his former allegiance in the briny 
waves of the Atlantic. The "Jap," outstripping his 



64 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

nearest neighbor in material and social improvement, 
drinks at the fountain of American learning and imbibes 
our public spirit and ardent love for country. 

Those who seek for the cause of this singular and 
peculiar development of patriotism we point to the pages 
of history, and tell them there to read in bright and 
shining letters the narrative of this country's many acts 
of disinterested humanity to her people, and we bid 
them there to gather a lesson, which, if they study it 
well, may enable them to regain the long-estranged affec- 
tions of their subjects. 

Let a foreigner set his foot on the dock at Castle Gar- 
den, though poor and friendless, with rags to cover his 
limbs and hunger gnawing at his vitals, if he but declare 
his intention of becoming an American citizen he may 
wrap himself in the folds of that flag which has never 
been furled and defy the mandates of the world. We 
ask him nothing as to his antecedents, we care nothing 
for them, but looking only to the future, it is sufficient 
for us that he acknowledges our sovereignty and seeks 
our care; we throw the mantle of our protection around 
him and accept in return his voluntary allegiance. 

It was this patriotism that raised America from her 
state of ignorance to her present state of civilization and 
opulence; supported her in her sorest trials, and ad- 
vanced her so surely on the road to glory. It was this 
that taught her sons to fight, to conquer and to die in 
support of freedom and its blessings. Restrain not the 
flow of such a generous feeling, for so long as it guides 
and directs your conduct you may fear no foe, and every 



BE PATIENT, TEACHER. 65 

species of tyranny and oppression will feel the force of 
its influence and succumb to ite power. 

Edward C. Smith. 



BE PATIENT, TEACHER. 



THY task, perhaps, doth vex thee, 
And oft'times comes despair 
While telling one thing o'er and o'er, 
With wrinkled brow of care. 

'Tis old to thee, and tiresome, 

But then 'tis new to them ; 
And some one must disclose the buds 

That bloom on wisdom's stem. 

Remember thy first efforts 

To grasp the hidden things: 
How oft a kind and cheerful word 

A sudden radiance flings ! 

The child who sits and worries 
O'er some dark problem now, 

Her eyes half wet with starting tears, 
Hands pressed to throbbing brow, 

Needs but one harsh word spoken, 
In quick and angry tone, 

To crush the heart, and dull the thoughts- 
Be patient with each one. 



66 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

The scolding, fretful teacher 

Is something we deplore; 
The frown upon her own dark face 

Casts deeper shades before. 

O, come with smiling faces, 

Be gentle, kind and true; 
Ask help from One who strove, with love, 

His life's great work to do. 

Ida Harrell Horne. 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARADE— NORTH 
CAROLINA. 



SCENE I. — NORTH. 

[Four Girls, with arms uplifted and extended, advance 
to the front of the stage. Each, at the closing word, 
"there!" points directly North. Speak slowly and 
distinctly.] 

FIRST G. Eternal waste of ice and snow beams 
there ! 
Second G. The midnight sun, with lurid glow, gleams 

there ! 
Third G. See phantom armies of the skies clash there ! 
Fourth G. See cynosure for seamen's eyes flash there! 

SCENE II. CAROL. 

[The same Girls sing, emphasizing Carol whenever it 
occurs. Any familiar tune.] 
Carol loud, and Carol clear, 
Carol your devotion 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARADE — NORTH CAROLINA, 67 

To the home to us so dear, 

Between the hills and ocean. 
Carol loud, and Carol sweet, 

Carol, sons and daughters ! 
Fairer home no eye can greet, 

From mountains to the waters. 

SCENE in. — LINE. 

[Arrange a straight line of scholars in front, and a 
curved line behind them. Each line recites in con- 
cert.] 

Straight Line, "Straight is the line of duty. 
Curved Line. Curved is the line of beauty. 
Straight Line. Follow the first, aud thou shalt see, 
Carved Line. The last will surely follow thee!" 

[In reciting the third line, let the Straight Line march 
on; and in reciting the fourth, let the Curved Line 
march on and into the steps of the Straight Line.~\ 

SCENE IV. — A. 

[Arranged in a framed tableau, North Carolina, a young 
lady in national colors, holding a shield with the Arms 
of North Carolina. (See Webster's Unabridged Dic- 
tionary, page 1755.) This is covered while another 
girl recites:] 

Ah ! let me show you a lovely face ! 

Ah! let it speak of a brave old place! 

Ah! let it tell you where Freedom woke! 

Ah! let it tell you where first she spoke! 



68 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

SCENE V. — NORTH CAROLINA. 

[She unveils the figure. The audience look upou it as a 
tableau. She recites :] 
Hark ! the face a voice hath found ! 
Listen to its silver sound. 
North Carolina recites : 

From Mecklenburg a voice went out, 
A hundred years ago — a shout 

That cried, My sons are free ! 
The Old North State was first to take 
Her stand for Right, for Freedom's sake, 

Their champion to be ! 
" Who am I?" I display my shield; 
Behold, upon its ample field 

Freedom, with plenty nigh. 
Follow the first, and thou shalt see, 
The last will surely follow thee! 
Now tell me, Who am I? 
All respond : North Carolina. [Scene closes by all 
the class singing joyfully and with emphasis our State 
song, "Ho! for Carolina," the boys alone singing the 
fourth stanza and the girls alone singing the fifth stanza. 
The words should be uttered with distinctness and ex- 
pression.] Mary B. C. Slade {Adapted). 



I like the girl who will not tell 
Everything she knows; 

Who does not snub the other girls 
Nor criticize their clothes. 



PILOT MOUNTAIN. 69 



PILOT MOUNTAIN. 



ALL-SHADOWING Pilot ! high, lone and cold, 
Thou rearst thv form in grandeur, and the light 
Which gilds thy brow at sunset, as of old, 

Shall he to thee a diadem all bright, 
Amid the ages distant and untold. 

To guide the pilgrim's grim and failing sight 
Along thy battlements. And now the sun 
Goes down behind the mountains — day is gone. 

'Tis night upon the Pilot! come and see 

The startling of the mighty pile; 
Look how the lightnings glance — and now the free 

Wild winds are rushing o'er this earth-born isle, 
Thrown up amid the wide and desert sea 

The clouds are gathering, and no lovely smile 
Of the bright stars is ours. Hark ! the tone 
Of the loud thunder from its flashing throne ! 

Night on the Pilot ! From the stormy west 

The clouds are mustering, and their banners gleam 

In shadowy glory, and their folds are dressM. 
In the mild livery of Orion's beam. 

And now each glen and lofty mountain's crest 

Grow bright beneath the moon's resplendent stream 

Of living radiance. Now the light is gone, 

And darkness girds us with her ravless zone. 



*A noted peak in Surry county. 



70 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

The morn is up — the bright and dewey morn — 
And darkness rolls from off the lofty pile, 

And voices, deep and wild, and mountain-born, 
Go up in thankfulness; for now the smile 

Of day is on us; now the huntsman's horn 

Winds its rich numbers through each deep defile, 

Startling the eagle from his high abode 

Mid the rough crags where mortal foot ne'er trod. 

Journey we eastward. Hail! old Guilford, hail! 

Thy soil is sacred. Thine the battle-ground 
Where England's strong and haughty hosts grew pale 

In victory's presence. Here the brave were crown'd 
With fame immortal. Here the loudest gale 

Of battle sounded, while the blue profound, 
Rent with thy shouts of triumph, clear'd away, 

And pour'd upon thee Freedom's perfect day. 

James B. Shepard. 



WHAT I WILL DO. 



YOU know a little boy like me 
Can't speak like Z. B. Vance; 
But you just wait awhile and see, 
And give this boy a chance. 

I'll learn all there is in books 

And grow up quite handsome, 
I will excel old Zeb in looks 

And out-speak General Ransom. N. 



PATRIOTISM OF SOUTHERN WOMEN. 71 



PATRIOTISM OF SOUTHERN WOMEN. 



THE great civil war has ended. Worn away by 
attrition, the little band that so long had kept at 
bay ten times their number returned to their shattered 
homes, 

" In tattered coats of dear old gray, 
In dusty, weary, worn array, 
Their banners — flaunting once and gay, 
Now drooping drearily."' 

Then came the sweetest task and noblest work of 
Southern womanhood. With ruined fortunes, with 
blackened homesteads, with oppression and misrule, and 
a catalogue of wrongs and ills that would have made 
cravens or desperadoes of an inferior race, the sublime 
influence of woman lifted the broken and despairing 
up to the heights of her own moral heroism. Taught 
in privation's bitter school, she shared poverty, accepted 
the hardest labors with a smile, and while she put on 
the garments of mourning for the dead, she bade the 
survivors quit themselves like men; she kept alive the 
holy fires of patriotism, she gathered the bones of the 
departed, and erected the cenotaphs that emblazon their 
achievements. 

Year bv vear she tended with loving hands the a^ed 
fathers whose onlv future lies bevond the setting sun of 
life, where they shall rejoin their loved and lost. Year 
by year she taught the lisping child to mingle the name 
of Lee with ^Yashington, and found the lessons of virtue 
in the lives of the dead we honor. Was it unyielding; 



72 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

heroism she would teach? She found it — Whiting 
amidst the battered walls of Fisher. Was it chivalry? 
Ashby's name rose to her lips. Was it superhuman 
daring? Who but Stuart of the cavalry? Was it 
romantic gallantry? She loved to name the boyish Pel- 
ham, with his giant's heart ! Was it profound and rev- 
erent piety — she stood with awe before the sight of 
Jackson on bended knee in the deep silence of the night- 
watch before the battle morn ! 

If there was ever any period when the South was in 
danger of losing the grand individuality that is her 
birthright, our women have saved us — 

" With hope severe, devotion high, 
Unwavering hearts, unflinching eye." 

With such mothers the children will preserve the tra- 
ditions of the true gentleman, in the words of Preston, 
his " piety, faith, honor, courage, generosity and polite- 
ness." 

Words fail to depict the grandeur of this people, if, 
with the opening development of our material wealth, 
and the dotting of our plains and mountains with new 
homes, and the filling of our ports with the commerce 
of the seas, we shall faithfully cling to the virtues that 
make man master of circumstances. To perpetuate the 
virtues of the father, is to guard the future of the chil- 
dren. 

The day will come when the sleeping genius of the 
South will rule this land again — not in hatred or revenge, 
but by the free will and for the common good of a united 
country. Claud B. Denson. 



THE RIVEK OF KNOWLEDGE. 73 



THE RIVER OF KNOWLEDGE. 



KNOWLEDGE is a golden river— 
From its source true pleasures flow : 
Those who would be happy ever 
Should unto its waters go. 

Those who sail upon its bosom 
Find more sunbeams in the way 

Than if in the gloomy forest 
They had loitered day by day. 

Ever rippling gently onward, 

'Neath a bright and cloudless sky, 

To the haven it will bear us 
In the joyous " by and bye." 

S. M. S. Rolixsox. 



BOYS , 



4 C T3 OYS will be boys/' and they ought to be. " Old 

JJ head on young shoulders" is usually spoken as 
a compliment, but it is not so regarded by the wise. 
Nature made the head and shoulders of the same age, 
and evidently designs that they shall continue so. To 
be precocious in any respect is to be unfortunate. Youth- 
ful prodigies in intelligence are apt to prove early and 
pitiful failures. 
4 



74 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

It is better to let boys be boys. It is the surest way 
to lead them to a successful and noble manhood. When 
boys try to be men too soon, they either spoil the work 
or suffer the penalty of violating nature's laws. All 
hasty, premature efforts involve a sacrifice of the impor- 
tant opportunities of preparation. It is better to learn 
something first. Only the rash and ignorant rush on 
to great undertakings before the body and mind have 
attained sufficient strength to win success. 

But the right to be boys does not imply the right to 
be foolish or bad boys. To be consistent and good is 
quite as binding on boys as on men. Besides, it should 
be appreciated as soon as possible that while boyhood 
can and does almost absolutely determine the character 
of the resultant manhood, on the other hand, the man- 
hood can never change the antecedent and forever decided 
boyhood. Hence it is at once a glorious privilege and a 
tremendous responsibility to be a boy ! 

There are some things, my young friends, that it is 
proper for me to urge upon your attention, without 
respect to what your circumstances may be. First of 
all, you must try to understand the meaning of duty, as 
the idea is connected with your life. In plain words, 
your duty is what you ought to do. Already you occupy 
your place in the world ; and you are face to face all the 
time with the work you ought to perform. To fill your 
place properly, and to do your work well now, is just as 
important, to say the least, as it will be at any future 
period of your life. If you ask me how you are to 
know what your duty is, I answer that it is probable 



SPEAK GENTLY. 75 

that you can very easily, day by day, find a satisfactory 
reply to your question in your own thoughts and feelings. 
In general, I may say, do what you think and feel that 
it is right and best for you to do. If you will, I assure 
you that there will always be light on your path. 

Adolphus W. Mangum. 



SPEAK GENTLY. 



SPEAK gently to the weeping child 
Whose little heart beats wild with sorrow; 
Yes, let your tones be low and mild, 
And bid it hope for joy to-morrow. 
Speak gently; tears will cease their flowing, 
The little face with smiles be glowing. 

Speak gently to the maiden fair 
Who sits with wild, disheveled hair, 
Mourning, w r ith sad, despairing tone, 
Hopes that are fled and friends agone — 
And soon her tear- wet eye will seek thine own, 
Will bless thee for thy kind and friendly tone. 

Speak gently to the aged one 

Whose locks are like the frosted snow ; 
Left in the wide, wide world, alone, 

His heart is buried deep in woe. 
No more you hear the bitter, friendless moan ; 
The old man's sorrow will be calmly borne. 



I 



76 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Speak gently to the stranger who 

Has crossed the heaving waters, blue, 

Mourning his distant, cherished home, 

Away across the waters' foam ; 

The stranger's heart will bless thee in its woe, 

The stranger's briny tears will cease their flow. 

Oh ! never let a rudely spoken word 
From out thy lips by mortal ear be heard. 
Yea, wdiile you sojourn in this world below, 
Always speak kindly to both friend and foe; 
For by a single rash word spoken, 
Hopes have been crushed, and hearts been broken. 
Lucie Maynaed Leach. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND VIRGINIA 
DARE. 



^T^HE name of the City of Raleigh awakens a long 
A train of far-reaching associations. It summons 
from the placid deeps of the past the memory of a grand 
and gallant hero, the towering shade and central figure 
of England's golden Elizabethian age ; it evokes, in quiet 
majesty, the form of Sir Walter Raleigh, the states- 
man and soldier, the sailor and courtier, the poet and 
philosopher, the chemist and historian, and the martyr 
in the cause of human freedom. On him, it was once 
said, the old world gazed as a star ! while from the new, 
where crystal cliffs of Mt. Raleigh, amid the solitudes 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND VIRGINIA DARE. i i 

oi arctic seas, shimmer beneath the aurora's rays, the 
reflection of his fame flashed back ! flashed over old 
ocean's wrinkled wastes three centuries ago. when the 
keels of his intrepid fleet first cleft the inland waters of 
the hemisphere which we now inhabit. 

Here, too, on the soil of North Carolina, he built a 
monument of enduring fame, for here he planted the 
new home of the Anglo-Saxon race; and here, among 
the vines and flowers of our eastern shore, where the 
breath of spring is filled as of old with the perfume of 
blossoms, and the cool forests are still made harmonious 
with the carols of innumerable birds, in a land whose 
loveliness fires the imagination and enchants the heart, 
he laid the foundation of a colony destined by lofty fate 
to imperishable renown, and gave to it, the island city 
of his hopes in those distant years, the glorious name 
which has been so often uttered here, the name of the 
City of Raleigh. 

Let us then, for a moment, roll back the chilling tide 
of the fast-flowing decades, and listen, amid the rising 
notes of triumph over toils forgotten and sufferings 
ended, to the weird story of the fate of our scarce- 
remembered mother city. It was a lonely settlement on 
a wild and stormy coast, the sole habitation of civilized 
man from the circle of the Hesperides to the Pole. One 
hundred and fifty persons made up its devoted band of 
pioneers, who had faced the terrors of ocean, the invisible 
fevers of the land, the starvation of the wilderness and 
the implacable malice of treacherous foes; and who, 
finally, faced an unknown and mysterious doom, whence 
no record has been rescued from the tombs of eternity. 



78 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

By the spell of this story the words of the historian 
have ever thrilled into tender and mournful harmony, 
for into the midst of that unhappy city there came one 
whose name has grown into a household word — a babe, 
the first sweet lily infant of our English mother, born 
on American soil, a heavenly gift, a merciful memory 
from the skies ! Virginia Dare, the first-born citizen 
of the first City of Raleigh, the first free-born citizen of 
a land consecrated to freedom forevermore ! 

And, therefore, may we not now, with this memory in 
our hearts, indulge our fancy with a dream, as all have 
sometimes dreamed, that if there be a tutelar divinity 
which guards the grove, the fountain and the hill, that 
surely from the balmy arc of this bright morning, some- 
where among the shadows of yon floating, fleecy clouds, 
clothed in the thin radiance of the stars, the spirit of 
Virginia Dare looks down to watch o'er our second city 
of Sir Walter Raleigh, which is alone, since her transla- 
tion to ethereal realms, the true daughter of the island 
city that was blessed three hundred years ago with the 
brightness of her natal morning! Aye, it is well thus 
to dream, and to believe, and to consent, in variance 
with the callous^skepticism of the hour, to the presence 
of so pure, so gentle, so angelic an ideal in our homes ! 
Virginia Dare ! Virginia Dare ! Virgin child of a 
virgin land ! May thy spirit watch o'er our thresholds 
and guard our hearth-stones with unfaltering love ! 

And yet, forever, methinks, beside her form there 
stands another shade, dissimilar but inseparable, rising 
from the placid deeps of the past in serene and tranquil 



IN A DREAM. 79 

majesty. It is the martyr and the babe, the statesman 
and the child, the poet and the angel of his song. It is 
the oak and the vine — the English oak and the Carolina 
vine — the vine whose trailing tendrils wander among 
the branches of our City of Oaks ! It is more ! It is 
the virgin and the hero ! Oh, then let this be our 
prayer, that the fame of the spotless purity of Virginia 
Dare may remain a memento to the unsullied sweetness 
of the maidens of the City of Raleigh, and that the 
memories of Sir Walter's virtues and his achievements 
may stir the hearts of our young men, as with a bugle 
blast, to emulate the deeds of him whose name is per- 
petuated by the city of their nativity ! 

Joseph W. Holden. 



IN A DREAM. 



SHE lies in a sweet and placid sleep, 
As bound by a magic spell; 
The eyes are closed that were wont to weep, 

And the bosom so used to swell 
With hidden grief, hath found relief 
In the trance of that wizard spell. 

The breeze is playing with tangled hair, 

A smile with her parted lips, 
The blood is mantling her face so fair 

And pinking her fingertips, 
As in a dream, with radiant gleam 

From memory's cup she sips. 



80 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

She sees him now where he used to stand 
In the moonlight weird and sweet, 

'Neath the old oak trees all gnarled and grand, 
While at their loitering feet 

The quivering shade the young leaves made 
Mocked their hearts' trembling beat. 

She hears him now as with husky voice 

He tells the treasured tale; 
With ill-hid joy she knows his choice, 

Yet wondering, mute and pale 
And on that night in dim moonlight, 

He whispers the strange, sweet tale. 

And in the thrill of that new-found joy 

Her heart is all aflame, 
While wished-for bliss without alloy 

Drives far all grief and shame: 
In fond surprise she opes her eyes 

And finds her joys — a dream ! 

And oh ! how sad are the wakings oft 

From the dreams we have cherished long ! 

We cheat ourselves with whisperings soft 
That life is a summer's song: 

Waking at last, when life has past, 
Find all our dreaming wrong! 

Yet is it wrong to taste the bliss, 

Though fleeting and false it seem? 
Is Pleasure a sin, and joy amiss 



REVOLUTION NOT ALWAYS REFORM. 81 

Because 'tis a transient gleam? 
Nay, bless the One who grants the boon. 
To sleep and then to dream ! 

William S. Lacy. 



REVOLUTION NOT ALWAYS REFORM. 



WE have three ideas as to government presented 
to our minds — a government too bad for a 
people, a government too good, and a government as 
good as they can bear. Under one of these three comes 
every form that has been established since the founda- 
tion of society. But we need not peer far back into the 
uncertain history of twenty-five centuries ago. Illus- 
trative of this same principle there are examples in mod- 
ern times. 

It is a fine morning in June, 1646. The sun has just 
risen from his gorgeous couch, and is pouring his flood 
of golden light over fair Britannia's land. The same 
rays which disperse the morning mist display alike the 
nodding plumes of the gay Cavalier, and the banner of 
the solemn Puritan inscribed with "many a holy text." 

What means this battle array? Why, on the one hand 
do I see a serried column, with Norman blood upon 
their cheeks and Norman fire in their eyes, reddened by 
excess of wine; and on the other, a stately band, with 
compressed lips and knitted brows, "whose backs no foe 
had ever seen?" The people have risen against their 
king ! The oppression has become intolerable, because 



82 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

the government is too bad. The smoke of battle clears 
away — the shout of victory dies among the hills— the 
king is beheaded — and O ! wonderful to tell ! the govern- 
ment becomes intolerable, because it is too good. 

If the people had disliked the government of Charles 
I., they now utterly despised that of Cromwell. The 
reason is obvious: the first, though bad indeed, repre- 
sented them far better than the last. Scarcely had the 
iron grasp of the great Puritan been relaxed from the 
throat of the nation, when his government was broken 
before the wrath of the people like a reed before an 
autumn blast. It was found that he had brought about 
a revolution, but not a reform. 

He had indeed removed some cancers from the body 
politic, but the disease, of which they were but the neces- 
sary outlets, had been left preying upon the vitals of the 
nation. He had but whited the sepulcher with the 
purity of democracy, while the rottenness of king-craft 
and a state religion reeked within. 

If he had cast out some devils from England's soil, 
legions of devils now came and occupied their places. 
If the name of Puritan was despised before — the name 
of purity, itself, now became a symbol of contempt. 

No, he had made a mistake. He had attempted to 
force upon the people of the seventeenth century a gov- 
ernment which the people of the nineteenth scarcely 
know how to appreciate. The time may come when the 
Ten Commandments may be the statute law of the land 
and work no oppression to any man, but it was not in 
CromwelPs day, nor is it yet. 



THE SOLDIER TRUE WHO WORE THE GRAY. 83 

Let the philanthropist of to-day remember, therefore, 
that good laws may sometimes be oppressive ; that a gov- 
ernment ought to be a growth of the necessities of a 
people — that it is the child of the people; and that the 
child is legitimate and will live to inherit its utmost 
prosperity only when it is the offspring of popular sen- 
timent. William J. Peele. 



THE SOLDIER TRUE WHO WORE THE 
GRAY. 



w 



r HEN this cruel war is oyer"- 
No, we never can forget 
How our noble boys once sang it, 
Ere our star in gloom had set; 
And its echoes sadly linger 
In the halls of memory fair, 

J 7 

From the past its sad notes bringing, 
And the bright dreams buried there. 

"When this cruel war is over" — 

Oh ! our lost ones, brave and true ! 
By the old songs we're reminded 

Of the debt we owe to you ; 
And the peril, toil and danger 

Met before our flag went down 
Won your country's love forever, 

And a victor's fadeless crown. 



84 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Though the "cruel war is over/' 

Tender eyes are dim with tears 
For a father, son or brother, 

Missed from out the passing years; 
And we lay the sweet spring flowers 

O'er each quiet, lowly bed, 
Thinking of the dear ones sleeping 

With the unknown, nameless dead. 

God knoweth where His own reposes — 

The soldier true who wore the gray — 
Though no immortelles of roses 

Deck his lonely grave to-day ! 
Far beyond the din of battle, 

Up above earth's care and pain, 
There in peace and love eternal 

Gray and Blue may meet again. 

Narcissa E. Davis. 



NORTH CAROLINA AND THE UNION. 



THUS far, under the blessings of Providence, amid 
the terrible events that ever and anon have crushed 
the rights of man elsewhere — amid angry storms and the 
wildest billows of party rage — upborne on the flood, our 
heaven -protected ark of freedom still floats on — and 
amid the tempests, at their darkest hour, there has still 
continued to stream from it a steady light, to cheer and 
gladden and encourage. And when that most terrific of 



NORTH CAROLINA AND THE UNION. 85 

tempests shall come — (which may God in his mercy 
avert) — when domestic fanaticism or party madness 
shall rage — when the voice of patriotism shall for a mo- 
ment be hushed amid the hoarse clamor of discordant 
factions — when the flood of fraternal strife and sectional 
hostility shall for a moment deluge the land — still may 
we not cliug to the hope of the Father of his Country, 
that when it shall please Heaven to stay the storm, our 
ark may also find its sacred resting-place, and that may 
be on the glorious Union of the States ! 

But while a patriotism should be cherished, liberal 
enough and comprehensive enough to embrace our coun- 
try, our whole country— while your young hearts should 
beat with proud emotions as you behold the grand yet 
novel spectacle of thirty-eight independent States, mov- 
ing in the same orbits and encircling a common centre — I 
trust I may be pardoned on this occasion, in this place, 
at this interesting era in our State's history, to express 
the hope and to encourage the sentiment, that among 
these national planets that move thus harmoniously in 
a common orbit, there is one for which every bosom here 
should throb with peculiar affection — one that is entitled 
to a place in our " heart of hearts"; and that one is 
North Carolina ! Not that I would have you love your 
whole country less, but North Carolina more. 

And disguise it as we may — regret it as we should — 
yet, my friends, is there not too much of reproachful 
truth in the suggestion now not unfrequently uttered, 
that the statesmen of North Carolina, gifted as they 
have been, patriotic as they ever are, have done much 



86 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

for the Union, but surely not much for North Caro- 
lina? — have grown pale often at the midnight lamp with 
anxious meditation on the affairs of the Union, but have 
rarely wasted or seriously impaired their mental or physi- 
cal machinery in efforts to advance the prosperity and 
glory of their own State? — have electrified masses by 
their pompous eloquence on matters of federal policy, 
but have only ventured now and then to timidly breathe 
forth a half-suppressed, hesitating suggestion that per- 
haps something should be done to save the "good old 
State "; until at last, when a youth of genius and high 
promise starts out on his career, clad with University 
honors, how often do parental pride and affectionate 
friendship intimate that sure he will not remain here, 
but will seek his fortunes in some more congenial clime? 
This should not be so. 

And the part you act in the future (which now will 
soon be the present with you) may have much bear- 
ing on the honor, the prosperity and reputation of your 
State. Study well her character — learn well her wants. 
Still in her past history there is not a little to excite 
your pride; in her present condition, much to animate 
and encourage. Still we may be proud that the bright- 
est page in our national history, that recites the thrilling 
story of American Independence, must also tell to future 
generations that its birth-place was North Carolina. 
Still you will find that her people have one crowning 
virtue, called integrity, that makes them happy at home 
and honored abroad. Still we have fertile fields, beau- 
tiful streams, a healthful climate, and a mountain scenery 



little lottie's speech. 87 

as grand and lovely as the pencil of nature hath ever 
sketched in any land. 

And if you, who gather your earliest lessons here from 
her own bounty — if you be true to her, true to your- 
selves — you may yet do much to aid her to make a gen- 
erous struggle with her proud sisters in the race; if she 
be not the swiftest, the gayest, and the richest, she may 
yet be honored and admired for her cheerful face and 
her sterling qualities. James C. Dobbin. 



LITTLE LOTTIE'S SPEECH. 



I LIKE fresh candy, fruit and nuts, 
And flowers red and blue; 
And I like pretty fairy tales, 
And stories that are true. 

I like my doll and cradle, 

I like ice in my milk ; 
I like new dresses, hats and shoes, 

But do not care for silk. 

I love my grandma and papa, 

My mother up in Heaven, 
And all the relatives and friends 

That God to me has given. 

I love God more than all the rest, — 

He dwells up in the sky, 
And if I'm good, I'll live there too, 

With mother, when I die. 



THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

I thank Him for uny earthly home, 

For pleasant schoolmates, too, 
For all my picture books and toys, — 

And now to all adieu. 

Martha Mills. 



A HAPPY COUNTRY. 



IN the allotments of Providence we have been placed 
in a pleasant and beautiful country— a country washed 
on either hand by the waters of the circling seas, and 
teeming with all the elements of prosperity and power. 
This glorious country — this chosen seat of science and 
of art — this happy and peculiar residence of civil and 
religious liberty, has been won for us by the constancy 
and courage of our ancestors; it is the birth-place of 
blood and battle and prolonged disaster; and it is ours 
to defend, ours to enjoy, and ours to transmit in untar- 
nished splendor to posterity. 

We can only do this by looking back and drawing wis- 
dom from that fountain of sacred and mighty memories 
which gushes from the rock upon which our government 
is based, and by looking forward and anticipating what 
our children and our children's children will expect at 
our hands when they shall have reached the shores of 
existence. 

The Republics that have gone before speak to us from 
amid the long dark sleep of ages, and warn us to. shun 
those breakers of licentiousness, anarchy and violence, 



A HAPPY COUNTRY. 89 

over which they went down in the fathomless chambers 
of ruin and oblivion. And if we will listen with rever- 
ence to the warnings which they utter; if we will profit 
by the teachings of our ancestors; if we w T ill seek for 
the old paths, and when we find them walk in them; if 
we will put from us everything which tends to foster 
frivolity and pride; if, as a people, we will cherish and 
cultivate towards each other a spirit of kindness, for- 
bearance and generosity; if the States will be satisfied 
with those powers which belong to them, and if the 
general Government will perform the duties its framers 
intended it should perform ; if w T e will labor to dis- 
seminate the blessings of education and the lights of 
religion and morality among all the people ; above all, 
if every citizen in the Republic, from the President 
in his palace to the day-laborer in his cottage, will 
execute the laws where it is his duty to execute them, 
and submit to the laws where it is his duty to submit; 
and if he will enshrine all the virtues in his heart, as he 
may and ought to do, and wear his titles as he now 
wears them, only on his brow, then may we proudly and 
confidently hope that the renown and the glory which 
burst in splendor from the darkness of the Revolution 
shall never die; and that the nations, as they rise and 
fall, and all the generations yet to be, as they come up 
and sweep onward to the shores of the untrodden world, 
may behold no land more free, more prosperous or more 
glorious than this, our own beloved, independent 

America. 

William W. Holden. 



90 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



THE ROSE-BUD OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



WOULD you gather a garland of beauty bright? 
You should wander at dawn or by pale moonlight, 
While the breeze is fresh on the opening flowers, 
Or their leaves are moist with the dewey showers; 
One Rose you should gather, and gladly entwine her, 
The soft-opening Rose-bud of North Carolina. 

Nay, go where you will, over mountain or plain, 
In country or city where gay fashions reign, 
Wherever Columbia's daughters are found, 
Fair blossoms of beauty are scattered around, 
But yet there is one, among all much finer, 
The fresh-blooming Rose-bud of North Carolina. 

In gay, festive halls, where the music is sweet, 
And beauties, like blossoms, in fresh garlands meet, 
Where light, like a flood, is.. poured over the scene, 
And fragrance floats round, as where roses have been ; 
The chief place of all, every eye will assign her, 
The beautiful Rose-bud of North Carolina. 

In home's quiet scene, where the heart loves to dwell, 
'Mid joys that no tongue to a stranger can tell, 
Whatever the life you are destined to live, 
One blossom is needed, her fragrance to give; 
Go gather that blossom, and never resign her, 
The sweet, gentle Rose-bud of North Carolina. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 91 

When sickness and sorrow shall visit your home, 
Sad guests, though unbidden, that surely will come, 
To have by your pillow a blossom like this 
Will make e ; en your death-bed a region of bliss; 
Her presence makes the soul each moment diviner,- — 
The pale drooping Rose-bud of North Carolina. 

Robert Strange. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



AMERICAN government and society are yet far 
from reaching perfection in their details. There 
is abundant need of correction both in manners and 
morals; but our system, with all its faults, is a thousand- 
fold better than any monarchy ever seen in the world. 
Misguided men are sometimes heard advocating a return 
to such a rule as that from which our forefathers emi- 
grated. They vainly imagine it would prove a panacea 
for those ills we see so abundantly growing out of sec- 
tional and party hatred. 

Let such a man think for a moment of how King James 
I. requited the great services of Sir Walter Raleigh, and 
blush for his folly. The human race seemed to have 
culminated, in that immortal era, in glorious adventure 
and audacity of speculation. It was the crowning epoch 
of advancement; but amid its genius, pageantry and 
upheaval, no figure of all that splendid throng of illus- 
trious men and women surpasses the interest attaching to 
the chivalrous, patriotic and unfortunate Walter Raleigh. 



92 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

He was only an English gentleman, but in his heroic 
life became more variously distinguished than any man 
of whom history makes mention. To his far-seeing 
sagacity England is indebted for the inauguration of the 
policy which has resulted in her present empire. He 
had served as a soldier for ten years in three different 
kingdoms, and to his counsels turned the intrepid Eliza- 
beth when the British Channel was darkened with the 
great Armada and danger had become supreme. 

He won renown at Cadiz and elsewhere as a naval 
commander, and he was for years a leading member of 
the House of Commons. Sir Walter Raleigh was a 
statesman in the noblest sense of the word. If he plun- 
dered the Spaniards, he did so because he knew the wily 
Philip was slowly maturing plans for the destruction of 
all that he held dear. Not one of the great men in the 
stately court of Elizabeth surpassed him in ability or in 
the splendor of his presence. As a gallant and courtier, 
he was equally conspicuous. He is still remembered as 
a poet and wit, who could preside at the Mermaid and 
hold his own amid the sallies of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, 
Beaumont, Fletcher, Surry and others, who are yet un- 
surpassed in the annals of revelry. 

As a man of learning, he was profoundly respected 
by Lord Bacon, and when his career seemed closed by 
his long imprisonment, he still rose superior to fortune 
and gained fresh fame in his compilation of a history of 
the world. With such varied endowments was his crown- 
ing glory of personal integrity. He was never false to 
a friend or for a moment wavering in his love to the 
land of his birth. 



A CORN SPEECH. 93 

Raleigh, upon his return from the civil wars in France, 
began the undertaking as to colonization, in which he 
was to persist as long as he lived. Speculation is stag- 
gered when the attempt is made to trace the effects 
flowing from this single scheme of one great mind. 
Longer delay might easily have resulted in the complete 
exclusion of British settlements from all the American 
continent. John W. Moore. 



A CORN SPEECH. 



I WAS made to be eaten, 
And not to be drank ; 
To be threshed in a barn, 
Not soaked in a tank. 

I come as a blessing 
When put in a mill ; 

As a blight and a curse 
When run through a still. 

Make me up into loaves 
And your children are fed, 

But if into drink, 

I will starve them instead. 

In bread I'm a servant 
The eater shall rule ; 

In drink I am master, 
The drinker a fool. 



94 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Then remember the warning, 
My strength I'll employ, 

If eaten to strengthen, 
If drank to destroy. 



Anon. 



AMERICA'S GREATNESS. 



LET us turn to a bright picture, and view America 
shining forth as the brightest gem in the coronet of 
nations. She has established the falsity of the many- 
tongued slander that a country in which laws are made 
and rulers are chosen by the people to be governed cannot 
stand, guarantees by her prosperity the stability of Re- 
publican forms of government, and demonstrates the 
truth of the cherished theory of our greatest statesmen 
that no one is better qualified to hold the reins of govern- 
ment than he who has felt the bit. 

Carefully guard and protect her, my countrymen ! and 
see to it that no internal jealousies or strifes mar her 
prosperity. She has been torn asunder once by civil 
discord, when the swords of brothers were crossed to 
determine the right of States to exercise the power which, 
in the Declaration of Independence, was held to be a 
self-evident truth. The successful opposition to those 
who denied this doctrine, and thereby nullified that part 
of the great Declaration of Rights, has forever set at 
rest the idea of secession, and I believe that all who can 
look calmly and dispassionately at the result will rejoice 



America's greatness. 95 

with me at the event. Sincere in our aims and high- 
minded as to our principles, no one, not even our bitterest 
enemies and defamers, will dare to question the purity 
of the motives or the honesty of purpose with which we 
engaged in the struggle. 

If the right to secede had been established, then 
every bond of union w T ould have been severed. Then 
every State might have been a little nation, jealous of 
its neighbors and anxious to strengthen itself by foreign 
alliances against its former friends, and we might bid 
farewell to fraternal affection, unsuspecting intercourse 
and mutual participation in commerce and citizenship, 
and the lustre which attaches to our land by reason of 
its compactness and strength would be as the dust of the 
diamond to a large and brilliant stone. 

Reflect, then, how many and weighty are the con- 
siderations that advise and persuade us to remain in the 
safe and easy path of the Union ; to continue to move 
and act as a federation of brothers, and to have confi- 
dence in ourselves and in one another. 

Let, then, those who wore the gray and fought for her 
dismemberment take the loyal hand of those who donned 
the blue, and, wiping out all memories of the past, press 
forward to the common goal of greatness, and in the 
future be one people, speaking one language, with one 
aim, one God and one country. 

Edward C. Smith. 



Washington fought the British, Franklin flew the kite, 
But both would be skittish to speak to you to-night. 



96 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

RETROSPECTION. 



THE wanderer from his childhood's home 
Looks back upon it with a tear, 
And feels wherever he may roam, 
Affection still will linger there. 



*&^ 



So do we often look behind 

To catch a view of other days, 
There visions fading from the mind, 

Are golden still with memory's rays. 

Like some far-sweeping wave that flows 
Where light and shade alternate play, 

While shadows flit and sunshine glows, 
It darkens, gleams, then melts away. 

So rolls the changing tide of life 

That strands upon the distant past, 
With mingled joys and sorrows rife 

Its changeful bosom fades at last. 

The soft, enchanting strains of song 
That sweep the zephyr harps of night 

Grow sweeter as they float along 
And die in echoes of delight : 

So comes the voice of other years, 

Stealing from Youth's decaying bowers, 

And pleasure smiles thro' sorrow's tears 
When memory wields her magic powers. 

Thomas G. Lowe. 



THE UNION INVALUABLE. 97 



THE UNION INVALUABLE. 



CALCULATE the value of this Union ! Who can 
do it? What mind can fully comprehend the 
inquiry? What intellect can grasp the theme? Who 
can estimate the good which it has already accomplished? 
Who can foresee — who foretell the evils that will follow 
its dissolution? Stretching from the shores of the At- 
lantic to the Pacific Ocean; throwing its mighty arms 
from the frozen regions of the North to the sunny climes 
of the South ; with a soil as rich and varied as the sun 
in his course ever shines upon ; with a population of 
fifty millions of souls, prosperous, happy, enterprising, 
sending up their songs of praise to the Almighty Dis- 
poser of events for the great blessings they enjoy; with 
a commerce whitening every sea, and carrying the fruits 
of civilization into every land ; with a government which, 
for safeguards for human freedom, surpasses all that ever 
entered into the imagination of a Plato or Harrington, 
thus standing out before the world a great, free, united 
nation, a bright and shining light to the down-trodden, 
a terror to tyrants and oppressors: — If this light be 
extinguished ; if this planet shoot madly from its sphere 
and dart into the black abyss of anarchy and civil blood- 
shed, where, where again will man look for hope? What 
other star of freedom will pierce the darkness? 

Calculate the value of this Union — the worth of our 
glorious Constitution ! More than a century has elapsed 
since North Carolina came into this Union-— since she 
5 



98 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

put her seal to that Constitution. Two years she reflected 
before the step was taken. She reflected long and well. 
She came in. She signed the great indenture. She 
affixed to it the signet of her sovereignty. It was her 
own voluntary act. Up to this hour she has performed 
faithfully, and with true and patriotic heart, all its obli- 
gations. She expects still to perform them. She will 
never deny her signature or repudiate her seal. She 
desires to be true to the plighted faith to her sisters. 
She demands of them to be true to their pledges — to 
their obligations. If they are thus true, she will stand 
with them upon the battlements of this Union ; and 
though they may rock and totter beneath the attacks of 
enemies, she will never leap cowardly from them, but, 
clinging the firmer to her high position, hand in hand 
with those sisters, she will bid defiance to the assaults of 
fanaticism from within and tyranny from without. 

If dangers threaten, if perils come, may she cling to 
that Constitution — the bark which carried our fathers 
through the perilous waves of anarchy — and however 
portentious the coming storm, may she lash herself to 
it; and, if destined at last to go down, I pray God that 
she may go down with a bold and true heart — untainted 
with treachery, and with garments unsullied by treason! 

Henry W. Miller. 



The little boys who will not keep 
Their hands and faces clean, 

Cannot attend a school like this, 
Nor on the stage be seen. 



WHAT I SHALL BE. 99 

WHAT I SHALL BE. 



A RECITATION FOR VERY LITTLE BOYS. 



ALL IN CONCERT. 

WE'LL tell you dow what we will be 
When books aside are laid ; 
Please listen well and you'll agree 
Each choice is wisely made. 

FIRST BOY. 

A Farmer's life is the one for me, — 

So happy all his days; 
He sells his cotton for seven cents, 

Which costs fifteen to raise. 

SECOND BOY. 

Fll be a thing which is well known, — 
Please do not think me rude — 

But if I ever do get grown 
Vm bound to be a Dude, 

THIRD BOY. 

I'll be an Agricultural man, 

With glasses on my nose; 
Who, though he never plants a seed, 

Can tell just how it grows. 

FOURTH BOY. 

When I get to be a man 

I will live at my ease; 
I'll study Law, and jaw, and jaw, 

And gobble up the fees. 



100 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

FIFTH BOY. 

I want to be a Teacher, 

And fill my head with knowledge; 
And when its nearly full, you know, 

I'm going to * College. 

SIXTH BOY. 

Fm going to be a Doctor man, 
With powders, knife and pill ; 

I'll cure the folks, I know I can, 
(Unless they should be ill.) 

SEVENTH BOY. 

I'll be a Merchant, with a store 
Filled with sweets which delight; 

When trade is dull I'll lock my door 
And eat my profits out of sight. 

EIGHTH BOY. 

I'll be a Sailor, bold and free, 

As we read of in tales; 
When all is fair I'll be at sea, 

But always home in gales. 

NINTH BOY. 

A Carpenter I think I'll be, 
And build the houses grand; 

My work will be as good, you'll see, 
As any in the land. 



* Supply any name desired. 



THE TRITE MISSION OF WOMAN. 101 

TENTH BOY. 

In Politics my life Fll spend, 

And reach the greatest fame; 
Will promise much to every friend, 

But fool them all the same. 

ALL IK CONCERT. 

Now we've told you what we'll be,— 

When older we may find 
These things are not as we now see, 

And then we'll change our mind. H. 



THE TRUE MISSION OF WOMAN. 



IT seems strange that the world has not yet found out 
the uses of woman. Nearly six thousand years ago 
Eve was created and given to Adam for "an help, meet 
for him"; but if Adam understood her position, and 
her duties and privileges, he failed to impart the knowl- 
edge to his descendants. 

Till the coming of Christ, woman was a slave ; and 
since his day she is still, in most countries, regarded as 
a sort of beast of burden, — as a pretty, animated toy, 
without an immortal soul, or as the mere creature of 
passion and whim. In Christian countries her nature 
has been better understood; and in these she has been 
made the subject of education and moral instruction. In 
them she has made rapid advances in the scale of being; 



102 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

and the danger now is that the spirit of reform may ad- 
vance too far and annihilate all social and political dis- 
tinctions between the sexes. 

She was made for an help, meet for man; that is the 
language of the Scripture — language which all misquote, 
and which few have understood. What sort of a help 
would be meet or proper for man, suitable to his condi- 
tion here? All the labors of this world are dual, con- 
sisting of two parts: there are two kinds of manual 
labor, two kinds of moral, and two kinds of intellectual 
labor, each necessary to the success of the other, and to 
the harmony and well-being of the world. 

In the woods and fields, on the waters, in the shops, 
and in the mines, man was doomed to labor and earn 
his living by the sweat of his brow; and he was fitted 
for this by his strength, activity, courage, and hardihood. 
But his labors in these departments will not, by them- 
selves, insure comfort; for he has to be clothed, to eat 
food which has been cooked and dressed, and to live in 
houses. 

In the house, therefore, is another field of manual 
labor; a little world, requiring more taste, tact, and deli- 
cacy, patience and moral courage, but less strength, and 
a constitution not so robust as are demanded by the tasks 
out of doors. For this sphere of action was woman 
constitutionally adapted; and we have but to look at her 
frame, and observe her instincts, to be at once convinced 
of this. 

Woman is also the moral guide and instructor of one- 
half of the race ; and her moral tasks are even more 



THE TRUE MISSION OF WOMAN. 103 

responsible and grave than those of the other sex. She 
writes the first lessons on the human mind; she shapes 
the character of the man and woman, and .-tarts him and 
her on a career that will lead to honor or shame, to hap- 
piness or destruction. And that she might perform these 
tasks — that she might be content with these manual, 
moral, and political labors, and not desire to usurp the 
place of man, God has endowed her with intellect like 
man, and with an immortal soul like his, but with more 
active sympathies, more delicate sensibilities, more timid- 
ity and modesty, more tenderness, and a milder disposi- 
tion, but with quicker perceptions, stronger instincts, 
and a more confiding nature. 

Her person is fairer than man's and while it is not so 
robust, it is better suited to delicate handiwork; and so 
her mind, though not capable of continued, laborious 
application to one subject, nor adapted to bloody adven- 
tures or complicated calculations, is better suited than 
that of man's to the nice arrangement of domestic mat- 
ters, to the knowledge of youthful wants and necessities, 
to soothe, soften, and subdue, to love the natures of old 
and young. Thus has nature fashioned woman; and if 
we take nature for our guide, can we mistake woman's 
mission, or fail to understand and appreciate the princi- 
ples on which her education should be conducted? 

She is to be properly fitted, by education, for the field 
wherein God designed her to labor and be useful : her 
person is to be made more fair, her heart more pure, her 
mind expanded and adorned with useful studies. She 
was sent to adorn as well as moralize the world ; and 



104 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

whatsoever tends to the real improvement of her per- 
sonal charms should not be neglected. 

But she was not sent merely to be looked at and ad- 
mired; and those girls who are persuaded into the be- 
lief that they are angels or deities will soon find them- 
selves aliens in society, disconnected with the web of 
human joys and sympathies, a burden to themselves, 
disgusting to the real angels, discontented, impracticable, 
unhappy, and everywhere out of place. 

The proper arrangement of household matters requires 
a cultivated taste and a mind which has kept pace with 
all the improvements of civilization. These matters can 
be so ordered as to make everything beauty to the eye 
and music to the ear; to afford pleasure through all the 
senses, and to amuse, delight, and instruct the mind, and 
invigorate, purify, and develop the heart and its best 
and holiest affections. It is easy to fancy such a house- 
hold — a little world of beauty and comfort, over whose 
harmonious evolutions presides that genius of modern 
times, that product of the Christian religion, benignant 
and intelligent woman, the central sun of a truly happy 
home, irradiated with her smile, warmed with her love, 
and governed by her intelligence. 

Calvin H. Wiley. 



You think that little girls are sweet 

When in a happy mood ; 
If that is true we'll try to keep 

Always happy and good. 



HO! FOR CAROLINA. 105 



HO! FOR CAROLINA! 



LET no heart in sorrow weep for other days; 
Let no idle dreamer tell in melting lays 
Of the merry meetings in the rosy bowers; 
For there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours. 

Chorus. 

Ho ! for Carolina ! that's the land for me; 
In her happy borders roam the brave and free ; 
And her bright-eyed daughters, none can fairer be; 
Oh ! it is the land of love, and sweet Liberty. 

Down in Carolina grows the lofty pine, 
And her groves and forests bear the scented vine ; 
Here are peaceful homes, too, nestling 'mid the flowers, — 
Oh ! there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours. 

Ho ! for Carolina ! &c. 

Come to Carolina in the summer time, 

When the luscious fruits are hanging in their prime, 

And the maidens singing in the leafy bowers; 

Oh ! there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours. 

Ho ! for Carolina ! &c. 

All her girls are charming, graceful, too, and gay, 
Happy as the blue-birds in the month of May; 
And they steal your heart, too, by their magic powers, — 
Oh ! there are no girls on earth that can compare with ours. 
Ho ! for Carolina ! &c. 



106 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

And her sons so true, in " warp and woof," and "grain/' 
First to shed their blood on Freedom's battle-plain ; 
And the first to hail, from sea to mountain bowers, 
Strangers from all other lands to this fair land of ours. 
Ho ! for Carolina ! &c. 

Then, for Carolina, brave, and free, and strong, 
Sound the meed of praises "in story and in song" 
From her fertile vales and lofty granite towers, — 
For there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours. 

Ho ! for Carolina ! &c. 

William B. Harrell. 



STATE PEIDE. 



STATE pride is an active desire to see our immediate 
country prosperous and happy. It has its origin in 
that love for the land of our birth which is one of the 
strongest instincts of our nature, and incites nobler actions 
and induces greater sacrifices than any other impulse of 
man's bosom. Love of birth-place and home is developed 
simultaneously 'with those warm affections for parents, 
brothers, friends, that exist around the family hearth, 
and which, if cultivated, cluster ever after about the 
human heart- 
As association expands the scope of affection, this 
feeling extends to the social system around us, and is 
gradually enlarged until it comprises within its devo- 
tion the entire government of the country we inhabit. 



STATE PRIDE. 107 

No government has ever retained the allegiance of its 
citizens where this sentiment has languished; and no 
country has flourished where it was not taught as a prin- 
ciple, cherished as a passion, and made subordinate only 
to religion, in the ardor with which it glowed in the 
bosom of the people. But the force and efficiency of 
this feeling, in controlling our actions, stimulating high 
resolves, and securing the sacrifice of individual interest 
to the public good, depends upon the extent of the area 
of its operation. And in order to make it active, effect- 
ive, and self-sacrificing — I speak with reference to the 
public weal — that area should be circumscribed by fixed 
and definite boundaries, and must not be too extensive; 
for each successive enlargement of the circle of its sym- 
pathy weakens its intensity, precisely as our affection 
for family, relative, friend, countryman, becomes less 
ardent as it diverges from the principal focus of concen- 
tration. 

The division of the vast territory of our Republic into 
States, with known and fixed boundaries, and having 
the entire control of their own internal police and gov- 
ernment, thereby concentrating the actions, thoughts, and 
affections of their people, while it constitutes the strength 
and beauty of our political system, is likewise the chief 
element of the prosperity of our Republic. 

As liberal competition between individuals, in the 
race for honorable distinction, is the greatest incentive to 
success, so does the generous rivalry among the members 
of our family of States, in their contest for pre-eminence 
in improving and ameliorating the condition of their 



108 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

people, insure to each greater progress in the march of 
improvement ; and the aggregate of character and pros- 
perity thus attained by the several States imparts to the 
Republic the glory and grandeur of its national char- 
acter. 

Much of the well-merited renown acquired by our 
arms upon the plains of Mexico may be ascribed to the 
noble emulation which was excited in the bosoms of the 
several corps of patriqtic soldiers, representing the differ- 
ent States of the Union. Marching under a banner 
clothed in the emblems and inscribed with the motto of 
his State, each citizen-soldier approached the field of 
battle proudly conscious that her honor and character 
were confided to his keeping; and, as he beheld his 
brethren from the other States unfurling their respective 
banners, and marshalling themselves beneath their folds, 
he resolved, with a hero's spirit, that the flag of his 
native State should be foremost in the van, while a single 
hand was left to carry and defend it. 

Thus inspired, the citizen-soldier of America has 
proved himself invincible. And if the same noble 
spirit of emulation, existing and operating in the civil 
departments of life, would animate and direct the people 
of all the States in this Union, what limit could human 
prophecy affix to their intellectual, social, political, and 
moral advancement! Would to God that our beloved 
State thrilled from centre to circumference with the inspi- 
ration of this spirit ! W. W. Avery. 



THE REASON WHY. 109 



THE REASON WHY. 



I AM but a little boy, 
Scarcely eight years old, 
But I give my teacher joy 
In doing as I'm told. 

I know all my A, B, C's, 
Have just begun to spell; 

And pretty soon I'll read with ease 
And learn my lessons well. 

I'm proud of the Old North State, 
I'm proud of our dear school, 

And that's why I am never late, 
And never break a rule. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



ROME, once the citadel of the earth, the terror of 
kings, now fallen, now defaced, still nourishes for 
the arts those talents by which patriotism and republican 
virtue are honored and recorded in the new world. 
Thus it is that Providence, in His wise and mysterious 
dispensations, makes even degenerate nations the instru- 
ments of preserving that holy reverence for the rights 
of humanity, which must ultimately issue in the estab- 
lishment of the liberties of the world. The country of 



110 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Phoeion and Leonidas may again be free; and some 
future Phidias, catching inspiration from the sublime 
ruins around him ; may make the marble tell to posterity 
the heroic actions of his cotemporaries. 

America may justly glory in her Washington, the 
founder of her liberty, the friend of man. History and 
tradition are explored in vain for a parallel to his char- 
acter: in other illustrious men each possessed some 
shining quality that was the foundation of his fame; in 
Washington all the virtues were united — force of body, 
vigor of mind, ardent patriotism, contempt for riches, 
gentleness of disposition, courage and conduct in war. 

In the annals of modern greatness he stands alone, and 
the noblest names of antiquity lose their lustre in his 
presence. Born the benefactor of mankind, he united 
all the qualities necessary to an illustrious career; na- 
ture made him great; he made himself virtuous. Called 
by his country to the defence of her liberties, he tri- 
umphantly vindicated the rights of man, and laid in the 
principle of freedom the foundation of a great Republic. 
Twice invested with the supreme magistracy by the 
unanimous voice of a free people, he surpassed in the 
Cabinet the glories of the field, and voluntarily resigning 
the sceptre of the sword, retired to the shades of private 
life. 

A spectacle so new and so sublime was contemplated 
with the profoundest admiration, and the name of Wash- 
ington, adding new lustre to humanity, resounded to the 
remotest regions of the earth. Magnanimous in youth, 
glorious through life, great in death; his highest ambi- 



a child's faith. Ill 

tion the happiness of mankind; his noblest victory the 
conquest of himself; bequeathing to posterity the inher- 
itance of his fame, and building his monument in the 
hearts of his countrymen, he lived the ornament of the 
eighteenth century, and died regretted by a mourning 
world. William Polk. 



A CHILD'S FAITH. 



I KNEW a widow very poor, 
Who four small children had ; 
The oldest was but six years old — 

A gentle, modest lad. 
And very hard this widow toiled 

To feed her children four; 
An honest pride the woman felt, 
Though she was very poor. 

To labor she would leave her home — 

For children must be fed; 
And glad was she when she could buy 

A shilling's worth of bread. 
And this was all the children had 

On any day to eat; 
They drank their water, ate their bread, 

But never tasted meat. 

One day when snow was falling fast, 

And piercing was the air, 
I thought that I would go and see 

How these poor children were. 



112 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Ere long I reached their cheerless home; 

'Twas searched by every breeze; 
When going in, the eldest child 

I saw upon its knees. 

I paused to listen to the boy — 

He never raised his head : 
But still went on and said — "Give us 

This day our daily bread." 
I waited till the child was done, 

Still listening as he prayed — 
And when he rose, I asked him why 

The Lord's Prayer he had said? 

"Why, sir," said he, "this morning, when 

Our mother went away, 
She wept because she said she had 

No bread for us to-day. 
She said we children now must starve, 

Our father being dead ; 
And then I told her not to cry, 

For I could get some bread. 

"'Our Father/ sir, the prayer begins, 

Which made me think that he, 
As w r e have got no father here, 

Would our kind father be. 
And you know r the prayer, sir, too, 

Asks God for bread each day; 
So in the corner, sir, I went 

And that's what made me pray." 



our state's pure record. 113 

T quickly left that wretched room, 

And went with fleeting feet; 
And very soon was back again 

With food enough to eat. 
"I thought God heard me/' said the boy; 

I answered with a nod — 
I could not speak, but much I thought 

Of that child's faith in God. 

Francis L. Hawks. 



OUR STATE'S PURE RECORD. 



NORTH CAROLINA has ever been slow to change 
her convictions. Her people have been uniformly 
loyal to what they held as the truth. Blandishments, 
threats and bloodshed have been unavailing to disturb 
that patient and abiding determination which has al- 
ways marked her course in public affairs. This noble 
and resolute purpose of deliberation has made the State 
a frequent mark for the witlings of other commonwealths. 
While all have been free to confess that she was loyal 
and true, yet men are found who complain that she is 
slow in her movements and call her the " Rip Van Winkle 
of States." We can smile at the imputation and pardon 
all the sallies of impatient rashness. 

A people who love justice and mercy, and who have 
been at all times of their history willing to die in defence 
of their liberties, can with all propriety be careful in 



114 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

departing from things which have been sanctioned by the 
wisdom and experience of the past. In the centuries 
behind us a singular devotion to truth and equity has 
ever marked and ennobled our annals. What America 
has been to Europe, North Carolina has ever been to 
America. 

No language can express the pride which should fill 
the souls of this generation for the simplicity and forti- 
tude of their predecessors who for two centuries have 
dwelt in and immortalized our State. This people have 
been very quiet and slow to anger, but multitudes yet 
remember the great host of soldiers sent out to uphold 
what North Carolina believed was right and proper. It 
will never be forgotten how undauntedly her troops 
descended to the harvest of death. 

In all those years when victories came so full and fast, 
upon each of those stricken fields, wherever heroes lay 
thickest, there, outnumbering those of any other State, 
were always to be found the mangled forms of our own 
North Carolina dead. There was scarcely a conflict in 
all those years that was not illustrated by the obedience 
and valor of our troops. 

Not in arms alone has our Commonwealth grow T n 
illustrious. The genius and spirit of her sons have 
made her as majestic in counsel as she has been effective 
in the field, and yet the Hotspurs would call her slow. 
Alas, how easy it is for haste, conceit and improvidence 
to utter this poor criticism on the movements of true 
wisdom. 

North Carolina was never slow when upon celerity of 



our state's pure record. 115 

movement depended the vindication of her honor. She 
has never paused to take counsel of her fears when danger 
was near In all her history her conduct has been just 
the reverse. The first blood shed in America to resist 
British tyranny was at the battle of Alamance. Six 
years earlier, John Ashe, Speaker of the Assembly, had 
headed the people in armed resistance to the issuing of 
the government stamps. 

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, May 
20th, 1775, was far from being slow, as was the deter- 
mination of the Provincial Congress at Halifax, April 
13th, 1776. Whatever may have been her deliberation 
in 1861, the first Confederate blood shed was that of a 
North Carolinian, when at Big Bethel her troops met 
the first Federal advance. 

Xorth Carolina was never slow but in that weighty 
deliberation which is often the evidence of highest wis- 
dom. She is very slow to forget her compacts and was 
never swift to recall her plighted faith. She can nobly 
bear with the haste and imprudence of sister common- 
wealths, but it is to be hoped will ever stop to ponder 
and conciliate before hope has fled and delay ceased to 
be a virtue. It is not to be denied that she has ever 
manifested a proper appreciation of the blessings she has 
enjoyed. She has been very slow to destroy institutions 
sanctified by the prayers, labor and blood of her long- 
buried and illustrious dead. 

Haste and passion in others have often pained our 
people, but have never disturbed their determination to 
effect by reason and comity that which becomes impos- 



116 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

sible in the brutal arbitrament of arms. No ruined 
States, like avenging Banquos, can point to the folly of 
North Carolina as the source of their misfortunes. She 
has gone on her way as stately in counsel as intrepid in 
action. 

Others are loud and boastful while danger is yet afar; 
the Old North State becomes sublime when her heavens 
are overcast and exulting foes are trampling her pros- 
trate form. She never cried craven when Lord Corn- 
wallis was in her high places, nor have the agony, blood 
and ruin of later years driven her to dishonor or taken 
from her keeping the lofty boon of self-respect. 

John W. Moore. 



CAROLINA, OUR PRIDE. 



CAROLINA, the pride of my bosom, 
Carolina, the land of the free, 
Carolina, the land of my fathers, 

Carolina, my song is of thee. 
From Mitchell, the pride of the mountains, 

To Hatteras, the dread of the sea, 
The sunshine of liberty gladdens 
And tyranny trembles at thee. 

Her honor is high as the summit 

Of Mitchell, her loftiest peak, 
Her vigor is that of the Roman, 

Her spirit is that of the Greek. 



CAROLINA, OUR PRIDE. 117 

Her daughters are bright as the sunshine 

That lightens the hills of the west, 
And fair as the rose of the valley 

That blushes and blooms on her breast. 

On her vine-clad sands of the ocean, 

Where Manteo greeted the whites, 
Was laid the first arches of empire 

And freedom looked down from its heights. 
She felt the first tread of the Angle 

And Saxon to people this land, 
Tho' rude was the welcome she gave them, 

And rough the fierce gale on her strand. 

What tho' the grim hand of disaster 

Swept over the island and sea; 
There's ever a charm in the story 

That tells of a Raleigh to me. 
In mystery deep and unfathomed 

And dark as the depths of the sea, 
More mute than the symbols of Egypt 

Is "Croatan" carved on a tree. 

On her shore by the sweep of the billow, 

Where the sea gulls mingle their cries, 
The babe of the Angle and Saxon 

First opened her innocent eyes, 
And saw the foundations of empire, 

Surpassing the grandeur of Rome, 
Now spanned by arches of glory, 

A wonder for ages to come. 



118 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Away with the ruthless insulter 

Her honor would sully and stain ; 
The stone that the builders rejected 

Is the beauty and strength of her fame. 
She was first in the battle for freedom, 

First to close tyranny's gates, 
First in the heart of her children, 

A pillar of cloud in the States. 

From the lakes of the North she has battled 

Wherever her captains have led; 
To the gates of the Montezurnas, 

She numbers by thousands her dead. 
Sublime as her martial glory 

She asks an unending release, 
That the shouts of her soldiers forever 

Be hushed in the anthems of peace. 

The east and the west are united 

By bands of iron and steel, 
And doctors of progress, excited, 

Her pulse is beginning to feel. 
Hamlets are springing like magic, 

The deserts beginning to bloom, 
The " strip of land south of Virginia" 

Is humming with spindle and loom. 

Then forward and upward our motto, 
And never look backward nor stop, 

The base of the summit tho ? crowded 
Is never so full at the top. 



LANGUAGE. 119 

Hurrah ! Carolina, forever, 

A glorious destiny waits 
Carolina, the cradle of freedom, 

The noblest of all the great States. 

Thomas W. Hakrington. 



LANGUAGE. 



WE are accustomed to regard reason and religion 
as God's greatest and best gifts to man, but Sir 
Isaac Newton has said: "God gave to man reason and 
religion by giving to him speech. " This statement ap- 
pears more than a paradox, and yet it is true, for what 
were reason and religion to the human race without lan- 
guage? How otherwise could these precious gifts be 
disseminated and preserved and their blessings enjoyed? 

What were swelling thoughts and mighty emotions in 
the human soul without the power of utterance? One 
might be in intellect "angel bright/' and in affections 
"angel lovely/' but without speech the exercise of that 
intellect and those affections would be but the workings 
of a soul in solitary and miserable thraldom. 

Speech is the deliverer of the imprisoned soul. It 
opens the portals of the heart and invites thought and 
emotion forth into light and liberty. As another has 
beautifully said: "Words reaching from the speaker's 
tongue to the listener's ear are the links of that golden 
chain upon which thought flies from mind to mind, and 
feeling from heart to heart." 



120 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Speech, however, derives its most permanent value 
from its written exponent. The achievements of the 
past, the wisdom, wit and beauty of other days would 
have remained buried in the tomb of the Capulets forever 
had not 

" Letters evoked their ghosts, 
And kept the pale embodied shades 
From fleshless lips to warn us." 

A man's heart may be like a live engine, booming up 
and down with great thoughts and stirring emotions, 
and utterance, too, he may find, distinct and bold and 
eloquent — " alternately gentle as the dews and terrible as 
the storm"; he may sway the multitude as do the winds 
of autumn the ripened harvest-field, and yet without the 
aid of letters all this power must die with the individual, 
or be but faintly transmitted to future generations, at 
last to fade from the memory of man, or be confounded 
with foolish fables. 

But let these same thoughts be pictured in written 
characters and they shall be immortal, proving the germ 
in the mind of after ages to bear many glorious harvests 
of new thoughts and noble emotions. 

"The voice flies from the lips," says Fowler, "to 
mingle with the winds — to be lost without an echo to 
the thought with which it was laden, but when that 
thought is written down it may continue sounding on as 
from a trumpet-tongue, speaking still, like Homer, to 
the great heart of humanity, or like Paul, to the con- 
science of all time." Thomas H. Pritchard. 



THE STAR ABOVE THE MANGER. 121 

THE STAR ABOVE THE MANGER. 



"And lo, the star which they saw in the East, went before them till it came 
and stood over where the child was! " Matthew, vii: 9. 

ONE night, while lowly shepherd swains 
Their fleecy charge attended, 
A light shone o'er Judea's plains 
Unutterably splendid. 

Far in the dusky Orient, 

A star, unknown in story, 
Arose to flood the firmament, 

With more than morning glory. 

The clustering constellations, erst 

So gloriously gleaming, 
Waned, when its sudden splendor burst 

Upon their paler beaming: 

And Heaven drew nearer Earth that night, — 

Flung wide its pearly portals — 
Sent forth, from all its realms of light, 

Its radiant immortals: 

They hovered in the golden air, 

Their golden censers swinging, 
And woke the drowsy shepherds there 

With their seraphic singing. 

Yet Earth, on this her gala night, 

No jubilee was keeping; 
She lay, unconscious of the light, 

In silent beautv sleeping,— 
6 



122 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

She lay entranced, her Ethiop breast, 
So long with anguish heaving, 

The earnest of eternal rest, — 
The Christ of God receiving. 

No more shall brightest cherubim, 

And stateliest archangels, 
Symphoniods, sing such choral hymn, — 

Proclaim so sweet evangels : 

No more appear that star at eve, 
Though glimpses of its glory 

Are seen by those who still believe 
The shepherds' simple story. 

In Faith's clear firmament afar, — 

To Unbelief a stranger, — 
Forever glows the golden star 

That stood above the manger. 

Age after age may roll away, 

But on Time's rapid river 
The light of its celestial ray 

Shall never cease to quiver. 

Frail barges, on the swelling tide, 

Are drifting with the ages; 
The skies grow dark, — around each bark 

A howling tempest rages! 

Pale with affright, lost helmsmen steer, 
While creaking timbers shiver; 

The breakers roar, — grim Death is near,— 
O who may now deliver! 



SMALL BEGINNINGS. 123 

Light, — light from the Heraldic Star 

Breaks brightly o'er the billow; 
The storm, rebuked, is fled afar, 

The pilgrim seeks his pillow. 

Lost, — lost, indeed, his heart must be, — 

His way how dark with danger, — 
Whose hooded eye may never see 

The Star above the Manger! 

Theophilus H. Hill. 



SMALL BEGINNINGS. 



ONE of the most curious and interesting speculations 
in which a man can engage is the attempt to trace 
cause and effect, or the dependence of one event upon an- 
other in the history of our race, as well as in the operations 
of the material world. In crossing the Blue Ridge into 
the mountains of our State, the traveler will pass, and, 
if he is wise, quench his thirst, at two springs near the 
very summit. The waters of one flow towards the 
rising sun, and, after a journey of many hundreds of 
miles, swelling by the. way into a great river, empty into 
the Atlantic Ocean. The other, not a hundred yards 
distant, flows towards the setting sun, and, becoming a 
still mightier river, pours its floods into the Gulf of 
Mexico, two thousand miles distant from the place where 
the other meets the sea. The mere accident of three 



124 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

hundred feet of difference at the starting point produces 
this wide divergence, and causes their waters to fertilize 
different lands and nourish different peoples. 

A single seed cast by accident from the waves of the 
sea upon the sands of the shore takes root, grows and 
matures, and introduces a new food or beauteous plant 
upon a whole continent. A train of emigrant men, 
women and children is slowly making its way through the 
wilderness, — a little child becoming sick, the party halts 
at a convenient fountain by the wayside to wait for its 
recovery ; but the waters are so sweet, the forest so fair, 
the climate so delightful, that they stop permanently, — 
they pitch their tents to strike them no more; and so 
great cities are begun. The beginnings of all great 
things have necessarily been small. 

It has been said that motion is the law of life. Our 
solid globe rests not one moment, but is in constant, 
rapid motion. The sun itself, the centre of our system, 
makes its great journey among the stars. The wave- 
lets occasioned by the dropping of a pebble in the sea 
it is said, continue their motion forever, and the air which 
was moved by the voices of our first parents in the garden 
has not ceased to vibrate through space. So, happily, 
it is in the moral world. One good seed sown in the fer- 
tile soil of the human heart will grow, mature and bear 
fruit forever. Good deeds, good words, good teachings 
are never lost — God will not permit them to perish, — 
but they multiply, some forty, some sixty, some a hun- 
dredfold to the end of time. 

Beginning with the single home of the educated wo- 



THE ALABAMA. 125 

man, count the influence she exerts upon the members of 
her own family, multiply that by their influence upon 
their families, multiply that again by their influence 
upon the families of those with whom they come in con- 
tact, and so on by the wonderful powers of arithmetical 
progression, and you will see how T it widens and expands 
as it goes, until the influence, — the blessed, leavening 
influence, like the Homeric ocean on the shield of Achil- 
les, surrounds and envelopes the whole stratum of our 
society ! Z. B. Vance. 



THE ALABAMA. 



FAR away in foreign waters 
There was vengeance in the name, 
And terror to the trader 

In the Alabama's fame : 
Far beneath the Southern heavens, 
And beneath the Northern stars, 
Did she bear unblenched the honors 
Of the Banner of the Bars! 

Where the bright sea of the Tropics 

Lay a sheen of burning gold, 
Where the icebergs of the Arctics 

Gleamed amid the frigid cold, 
Where the coral islands clustered 

In the purple Indian calm, 
Where the Mexic mountains bore aloft 

Their coronals of palm : 



126 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Where the Afric headlands towered 

O'er the ocean's broad expanse, 
Where the laughing southern waters kissed 

The sunny plains of France, 
Where'er a Union vessel 

Spread her canvas to the breeze, 
She did well to watch the coming 

Of the Ranger of the Seas ! 

She did well to read the warning 

Of the wrecks upon her path, 
Of the burning glow that lit the sky 

In sudden sign of wrath : 
She did well to reef her outspread sails 

And yield the hopeless fight, 
When the staunchest rover of the sea 

Came bearing into sight ! 

Long as the Southern heart shall thrill 

To deeds of deathless fame, 
So long shall live, in tale and song, 

The Alabama's name : 
Long shall the story still be told 

Of how she swept the seas, 
And flung the starlight of our flag 

To every ocean breeze! 

And honored long the Lion Heart 
That o'er her held command, 

All honor to the dauntless breast, 
And ever fearless hand ! 



THE TPOTE WOMAN. 127 

Thrice honored, too, the sword that rests 

A thousand fathoms deep,* 
Where surges foam and waters — 

And winds above it sweep! 

Like a hero clad in armor, 

True to the very last, 
The Alabama died no death 

That could disgrace her past ! 
The free child of the waters, 

She sank beneath the wave, 
And, with her flag still flying, found 

An unpolluted grave. 

Christian Reid. 



THE TRUE WOMAN. 



A WOMAN is weak when compared with the ro- 
buster build of man. But it is not the weakness 
of inferiority. Her Magna Charta in the story of the 
creation declares her essential equality with the man. 
She is the weaker of the two because her place in life 
requires the greater delicacy and refinement of organiza- 
tion. She is weaker than man just as the lovely stone 
tracery of a Gothic portal needs to be weaker than the 
heavy stone buttress beside it. It would not fill its place 
in the structure if it were equally heavy and strong. 



* Every one who has ever read "Service Afloat" — and every Southerner 
should read it — will remember how Admiral Semmes cast his sword into 
the sea. 



128 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

The question is sometimes asked, why teach girls more 
than reading, writing and arithmetic? Why trouble 
them with higher mathematics and Latin and mental 
philosophy and the like? What good can these things 
do them in the domestic sphere? I answer, these and 
other studies, pursued aright, are to do the same for 
women which they do for men. They are to teach them 
to think. They need this intellectual discipline even 
more than men do. A man learns much in the rough 
and tumble of life, — much that makes him thoughtful, 
even though his educational opportunities have been very 
limited. A woman in her more secluded sphere has less 
opportunity of learning in later years, and should there- 
fore bring with her into mature womanhood the largest 
possible ability to think clearly, truly, decidedly on all 
life questions. 

Thoughtfulness is one of woman's strong defences. 
Without it she often allows herself to be idly courted by 
those who make a mere toy of her. Her beauty, her 
vivacity, attract the attention of those who want a play- 
thing. If, as a girl, you are a cherished toy, as a wife 
you will be a neglected one. Some other plaything will 
come up, — a favorite horse, a fascinating card-table, or 
whatever else it may be. The more thoughtful your 
school-life has made you, especially upon the higher 
themes, the clearer your insight into the depth or shal- 
lowness of men and the happier your companionship 
with those whose thoughtfulness marks them out as 
members of mankind's true aristocracy. 

Feeling, deep, true feeling, is woman's greatest wealth. 



A KEST TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 129 

Her thoughtfulness is the bridle which she should have 
well in hand, but her stroug and tender feeling, this is 
the steed which must bear her joyously and nobly over 
her allotted sphere in life. Feelings need to be trained 
as carefully as thoughts, more so, if possible. But the 
training is different. It comes not out of text-books, 
nor can it be drilled on blackboards. It comes by ex- 
periment of self-sacrifice in actual life. The most shallow 
feelings are expanded into sweet, quiet depths, the most 
turbid feelings are purified into crystal currents by the 
simple practice of the rule to do for others. As exercise 
makes arms strong, so self-sacrifice makes feelings rich 
and powerful. E. Rondthaler. 



THERE REMAINETH A REST TO THE 
PEOPLE OF GOD. 



There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. — Heb., iv : 9. 

A REST for the weary, a rest for the faint, 
A rest for the toil-worn, the heart-stricken saint; 
A rest for the pilgrim, — his journey is o'er; — 
Tears, dangers and doubts shall beset him no more. 

A rest for the laborer, — his long, weary day 
Of work in the vineyard has glided away; 
Well done, faithful servant! Take up thine abode 
In the rest that remains for the people of God. 

A rest for the soldier, whose bright setting sun 
Looks down on the field where the victory was won ; 



130 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

He hath fought the good fight, he hath vanquished his 

foes ; 
For him there remaineth eternal repose. 

A rest that remaineth! On that shining shore 
The heart-aches of earth are remembered no more; 
No partings are there our heart-strings to sever — 
With loved ones and saved opes we rest there forever. 

No sin, no repentance, no sorrow, no fears, 
No temptations, no trials, no doubtings, no tears, 
No wandering, no falling, no chastening rod, 
In the rest that remains for the people of God. 

With the Father of Lights; with the Spirit of Love; 
With the Saviour of sinners in glory above; 
With Apostles and Martyrs redeemed by His blood, 
" There remaineth a rest to the people of God." 

Fear not then the dangers that lie in the way ! 
Faint not 'neath the burden and heat of the day ! 
Press on in the path thy Redeemer hath trod, — 
" There remaineth a rest to the people of God." 

William Bingham. 



CHILDHOOD. 



ONE of the sweetest of English poets has said that 
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy." We feel 
the truth of the remark when we see its sunlight still 
sleeping in childhood's tresses, its glory still gleaming in 



CHILDHOOD. 131 

their eyes. The philosophic Richter, in language which 
does credit alike to his head and heart, declared that 
"he loved God and little children." Sometimes when 
we listen to the rippling music of the artless laugh; 
when we witness the unsuspecting outburst of infant 
hopes; when we meditate upon the purity and innocence 
that warm and vivify their wildly throbbing bosoms, we 
can understand somewhat why a Saviour should deign 
to bless them, and liken His kingdom to a child. From 
my very soul, I pity the man who nurses not an affection 
for children — who delights not in associating himself 
with their innocent sports, and mingling with their un- 
studied mirth. 

There is about childhood a divine-like charm; and 
after-life has little to repay us for the loss of childhood's 
trust and confidence. It may be Imagination that paints 
its skies in resplendent hues; that peoples its paths with 
fairy congenial forms; that fringes with never-to-be- 
forgotten beauty the foliage of its every familiar grove. 
If so, we have a quarrel with Reason. She is a heartless 
disenchanter. With the art of a malignant magician, 
she mingles the ingredients of doubt with our hopes, 
distrust with confidence, and often substitutes in place of 
sunny halos sad, sombre scenes. 

But like the recollection of a pleasant dream to which 
the heart still fondly clings do we cherish vivid memo- 
ries of childhood's happy hours ! Thank Heaven, they 
are never forgotten. Sometimes they are buried beneath 
a weight of after cares; but events will transpire to 
touch with secret hand the spring, and in a moment we 



132 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

wear again our youthful smiles, and cherish our earlier 
hopes. There is about us a strange, mysterious power of 
reproducing the beautiful. 

It is a saying, not more trite than true, and deserves 
to be remembered, that earliest impressions are most 
lasting. Life is, indeed, a circle; and he who describes 
it with his " threescore years and ten," lays him down, 
eventually, in "second childishness." In more senses 
than one is the cradle near the grave; for in that sad, 
final hour, when the weary eye is closing upon all earthly 
scenes, the last pictures upon which memory gazes, will 
be childhood groups; the last tone to rouse the failing 
sense will be the soft, sweet strains of the lullaby that 
fell long ago from a mother's lips, as she soothed to 
slumber our infant cares. W. T. R. Bell. 



A MODERN UTOPIA. 



MUCH nearer to the famous Isle of quaint Sir 
Thomas Moore, 
And fairer than all other lands I ever saw before, 
Is this — the garden-spot of earth — this lovely rolling 

plain, 
Where Nature lavishes her gifts through all her fair 
domain. 

Nestled among the western hills — North Carolina's pride, 
Mid loftiest peaks of granite rock and mountain-spurs 
beside, 



A MODERN UTOPIA. 133 

Threaded by streams whose dancing waves reflect the 

heaven's blue, 
This " Happy Valley" sheltered lies, enchanting to the 

view. 

When sunset splendors paint the vale with lights and 

tintings rare, 
And dewy mountain-mists arise to cool the atmosphere, 
When the hoary, distant peaks are veiled in shadows deep, 
And o'er the nearer mountain-sides the shades of evening 

creep, — 

Methinks, in all God's glorious world, there's scarce a 

lovelier sight, 
Than this sw T eet Haywood valley rare, bathed in the 

softened light. 
And sure if there's a spot on earth nearest to Heaven's 

gate, 
It must be this Utopian vale in our good Old North 

State. 

Where else can such clear mountain streams and rippling 

brooks be seen? 
Such cool retreats, such rushing falls, such broadening 

vales of green? 
Such towering mounts, whose time-worn peaks uprear 

their lofty crests, 
Whose tree-crowned summits pictured lie upon the river's 

breast ? 



134 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Gushing from out the mountains' hearts full many a 

healing spring 
Yields readily its waters pure that health to mortals bring, 
While weary man, with care oppressed, leaving the city's 

din, 
Seeks rest and surcease from his toil, the happy vale 

within. 

Sweet peace and quiet reigns supreme among these hills; 

and here 
Mid lovely haunts, by mountain tarns, we know no sin 

or care. 
AVhile gazing upward at those peaks we feel a nearer 

sense 
Of heavenly things, and bow our hearts, filled with a 

love intense. 

I've stood upon the ocean's strand, and heard the mad 

waves roar 
In wild, triumphant glee against the all-enduring shore; 
And yet such grandeur pales before these grander, wilder 

mounts, 
And ocean's waves less glorious seem than these eternal 

founts. Lisette C. Bernheim. 



LOVE OF LIBERTY. 



THE operation of the love of liberty which ani- 
mated our fathers at the era of 1776 was not 
confined to our State nor to our hemisphere. This love 
was handed down to us from our British ancestors, an^ 



LOVE OF LIBERTY. 135 

wherever the descendants of the Puritans, the Cavaliers 
or the Scotch-Irish were to be found, there likewise was 
to be seen in its full efficacy this ennobling sentiment. 
The spirit of liberty in a great or less force was at that 
time abroad in the whole civilized world ; but our fathers 
were its leading champions then, as their descendants 
ought to be now. 

Our pioneer ancestors had learned from the trial of 
British patriotism how oppressive power was to be re- 
sisted, and they taught that lesson to their children, and 
accordingly our immediate progenitors, accepting the 
political maxims of the heroes of the Commonwealth 
and of the statesmen of the Revolution of 1688, flew to 
arms to vindicate and maintain those maxims whenever 
this infringement occurred, whenever it was even threat- 
ened. 

Long before a separation from the mother country was 
contemplated by any of the colonies, the Parliament of 
England infringed one of these maxims by seeking to 
tax us without our consent, and this act of threatened 
aggression called forth here in North Carolina a prompt 
and indignant resistance. Our people on the Cape Fear, 
anterior to any such action in the colonies elsewhere, 
under the lead of Cornelius Harnett, John Ashe, Hugh 
Waddell, and others, threw a cargo of tea into the Cape 
Fear river, and refused to submit to the " Stamp Act/' 
and compelled the officer who had been appointed to 
enforce it to leave his sanctuary in the Governor's palace 
and repair to the market place, and there to pledge him- 
self, under oath, to an assembled multitude, that he 



136 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

would forego the discharge of his official functions. 
Such was the pervading temper of the Colony, even while 
it remained in loyal allegiance to the Crown. 

The sentiment of loyalty was never so potential with 
our ancestors as the love of liberty, and when by any 
combination of circumstances these two great virtues of 
a true British subject came in conflict, our fathers always 
subordinated the former to the latter. Loyalty was a 
virtue in their esteem only when it was rendered to 
agents of government who themselves respected liberty 
and encouraged its sway in the measures of government 
and in the hearts of the people. 

While North Carolina, exulting in her maternal felicity, 
points with the complacency of Cornelia to her Caswell, 
her Johnston, her Nash, her Moores, her Brevard, her 
Harnett, her Howe, her Polks, her Davidsons, her 
Ashes, herWaddell, her Avery, her Alexanders and her 
Grahams, who, as she believes, in the great contest for 
our nationality, took the lead of the majestic world, 
methinks that from the contributions of these great 
States is formed a constellated centre of light sufficient 
to illumine and lead the population of the globe to the 
full attainment of the rights, the enjoyments and the true 
dignity of noble manhood. 

Who can contemplate the illustrious characters I have 
named without feelings of indescribable satisfaction. 
Their light will, sooner or later, go out to all the earth, 
and before their superior brightness all other luminaries 
and leaders of nations, ancient and modern, will u pale 
their ineffectual fires. " When the lapse of ages shall 



WILLIE. 137 

have shed its hallowing influences upon them, they will 
be held in greater respect and reverence than Solon or 
AristideSj Epauiinondas or Cato, or Cicero. Their prin- 
ciples are as immortal as the stars, nor is there any just 
cause to doubt their ultimate triumph and universal 
• prevalence. John Kerr. 



WILLIE. 



THE things he used to play with 
Lie in the corner there; 
And yonder hangs the worsted cap 

That he was wont to wear; 
Beneath his dimpled chin I see 

Its crimson tassels tied, 
And clasp once more, with fond caress, 
Our little boy that died. 

I hear the restless, rosy feet, 

That patter on the stair, 
And now he runs to mamma's seat, 

To nestle fondly there : 
He sits upon my knee again, 

Or, on my foot astride, 
I toss the darling of niv heart, 

Who clambers for a ride. 

The labor of the day is done; 

Home, to a glowing hearth, 
I hasten, ere the set of sun, 

The happiest man on earth ; 



138 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

A mother, standing at the door, 

Looks out, adown the street, 
Elate with joy, as runs her boy, — 

His father first to greet. 

Ah, then right merrily we romp ! 

And noisy is our glee, 
For each, to please the household pet, 

Must horse or driver be; 
He brings his "blocks/ 7 and begs papa 

" A church" for him to rear, 
But knocks the fabric down before 

The steeple can appear. 

His marbles next and then his ball, 

Till, weary of our play, 
He sups on mother's lap and folds 

His little hands to pray : 
And " Now I lay me down to sleep," — 

That immemorial prayer, — 
In faltering phrases, soft and sweet, 

Makes musical the air. 

He sleeps : the fire is burning low, 

And shadows on the wall, 
Like those he wondered at, and feared, 

Grotesquely rise and fall : 
Night — rayless night — overwhelms my soul, 

And yet, in my despair, 
I sometimes almost smile to think 

There is no shadow there! 



WILLIE. 139 

Tis summer time again, and I 

Sit mournfully for hours, 
And watch the painted butterflies, 

That woo his favorite flowers; 
They hover, unmolested, here, 

Yet — dreaming of the chase — 
I see the hunter's flashing eyes, 

His flushed and eager face ! 

How oft IVeseen the jocund boy 

Return from garden play ; 
His summer hat, of plaited straw, 

With larkspur blossoms gay ! 
The hand that decked it thus need not 

Renew the garland now, 
For seraphim and cherubim 

Twine amaranth for his brow ! 

Strange silence broods o'er all the house, 

From dawn to close of day ; 
The little drummer beats no more 

Tattoo or Reveille; 
His feathered cap and plaided cloak, 

And broken drum remain, 
But he, who wore them once, will ne'er 

Come back to us again. 

It almost breaks my heart to see 

The dog he daily fed, 
Crouch at our feet, and mutely ask 

The living for the dead ; 



140 THE NOBTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

I cannot harshly drive him out/ 

Though keener grief than mine 
Wells forth afresh whene'er she hears 

His wistful — piteous whine. 

"But wouldst thou call him back to earth, 

Have him again to wear 
The crim son -tassel ed worsted cap 

Upon his golden hair? 
Wouldst have thy Willie lay aside 

His diadem of light, — 
Change crown for cross, and blindly grope 

Beside thee through the night?" 

Ask me no more, for flesh is weak ; 

Our idol was a part 
Of every earth-born hope that blessed 

Mine and his mother's heart! 
"Ask me no more": help us, O God, 

This bitter loss to bear — 
To kiss Thy chastening rod, and live 

To find "our treasure," there! 

Theophiltjs H. Hill. 



NORTH CAROLINA AND THE STAMP ACT. 



IN the first of the year 1766 the sloop-of-war Dili- 
gence arrived in the Cape Fear, bringing the stamps. 
The proclamation of Gov. Tryon announcing her arrival, 
and directing all persons authorized to distribute them to 



NORTH CAROLINA AND THE STAMP ACT. 141 

apply to her commander, is dated the 6th of January in 
that year. Now look what shall happen. She floats as 
gaily up the river as though she came upon an errand 
of grace, with sails all set, and the cross of St. George 
flaunting apeak, and her cannon frown upon the rebel- 
lious little town of Brunswick as she yaws to her anchor. 

People of the Cape Fear, the issue is before you ! 
The paw of the lion is on your heads — the terrible lion 
of England ! Will you crouch submissively ? — or redeem 
the honor that was pledged for you? You have spoken 
brave words about the rights of the people. Have you 
acts as brave? 

Scarcely had the Stamp ship crossed the bar, when 
Colonel Waddell was watching her from the land. He 
sent a message to Wilmington to his friend Colonel Ashe. 
And as she rounded to her anchor opposite the custom 
house at Brunswick, they stood upon the shore with two 
companies of friends and gallant yeomen at their backs. 
Beware, John Ashe! Hugh Waddell, take heed ! 

Consider well, brave gentlemen, the perilous issue that 
you dare. Remember that armed resistance to the king's 
authority is Treason. In his palace, at Wilmington, but 
a few miles off, the "Wolf of Carolina "* is already 
chafing against you. And know you not that yonder, 
across the water, England still keeps the Tower, the 
Traitor's Gate, the Scaffold and the Axe? Full well 
they know. But 



' They have set their lives upon the east, 
And now must stand the hazard of the die." 



*Name given to Tryon by the Indians. 



142 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

By threats of violence they intimidate the commander 
of the sloop, and he promises not to land the stamps. 
They seize the vessel's boat, and hoisting a mast and flag, 
mount it upon a cart, and march in triumph to Wilming- 
ton. Upon their arrival the town is illuminated. Next 
day, with Colonel Ashe at their head, the people go in 
crowds to the Governor's house, and demand of him 
James Houston, the Stamp-master. 

Upon his refusal to deliver him up, forthwith they set 
about to burn the house above his head. Terrified, the 
Governor at length complies, and Houston is conducted 
to the market-house^here, in the presence of the as- 
sembled people, he is made to take a solemn oath never 
to execute the duties of his office. Three glad hurrahs 
ring through the old market-house, and the Stamp Act 
falls still-born in North Carolina. And this was more 
than ten years before the Declaration of Independence, 
and more than nine before the battle of Lexington, and 
nearly eight years before the "Boston Tea Party." 

The destruction of the tea was done in the night, by 
men in disguise. And history blazons it, and New 
England boasts of it, and the fame of it is world-wide. 
But this other act, more gallant and daring, done in open 
day, by well known men, with arms in their hands, and 
under the king's flag — who remembers, or who tells 
of it? 

When will the nation's history do justice to North 
Carolina? Never until some faithful and loving son of 
her own shall gird his loins to the task, with unwearied 
industry and unflinching devotion to the honor of his 
dear old mother. George Davis. 



A VISION. 143 



A VISION. 



A PILGRIM I stand where the sunlight 
Falls soft on the amaranth hills. 
And the light, as I humbly gaze upward, 
With rapture my bosom has rilled. 

For I fancy the "King in his beauty," 
The "streets that are paved with gold," 

While the breezes are soft and celestial, 
And whisper of joys now untold. 

Ah ! I see the wide w 7 alls, all of jasper, 
And the gate — a glittering pearl ; 

While the music of harps floating downward, 
Like banners, around me, are furled. 

Oh ! the brightness of beautified faces, 
And the waving of snow-white wings, 

As they walk by the crystal waters, 
Fair, fairer than earthly things. 

And they gather the pure white lilies, 
And wreathe them in immortelles, 

They worship the Lamb in His glory, 
While praise from their voices swells. 

And I, as I gaze, have forgotten 

That my garments but loosely enfold 

A form sin-laden and shrunken, 

And stained with the earth and its mould. 



144 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Forgotten the grey mile-stones Fve counted, 

The weary and way-worn feet, 
E'en the graves that lie by my road-side, 

And tears, once bitter, are sweet. 

Forgot that my hand has been clasping 
Hope's blossoms all withered and dead, 

Forgot that the star of my morning 
Has set, and its latest beams fled. 

Do I care? Ah ! no! This blest vision 

Has come like an angel of light, 
And bends, with her white hands, to beckon 

To the home that forever is bright. 

Claudia M. Tolson. 



A GLORIOUS DAY. 



AFTER much cold and sleet, and wind and ice, after 
many days of cloud and gloom and dreariest 
weather, Sabbath dawned upon us like a smile from 
Heaven, and its beams of cheer lit up all hearts w 7 ith 
brightest joy and gladness. And as we sat upon the 
veranda, bathing in the brilliant streams of sunlight, 
and enjoying the glorious and exhilarating transition 
from those sombre scenes of the week before to this one 
of such radiant beauty, we began to think and reflect 
and dream, and oh, gentle reader, what on earth is more 
sweet or tranquilizing that the soft hush of such a blessed 
Sabbath sunlight! 



A GLORIOUS DAY. 145 

It fell upon earth like a smile of approbation from 
the peace-bathed realms of the blest, and none could 
bask in its glory-light without nursing an aspiration for 
that higher, purer, sweeter rest of which this blessed day 
is beautifully and so eloquently typical. 

And again, this day coming as it does, the one calm, 
quiet, peaceful one amid those six stormy and trial-tossed 
and care-chased others which make up the week, it seems 
like a sweet, peaceful little isle in the ocean, on which 
greenest grasses grow, and sweetest flowers bloom, and 
purest waters flow, and where earth's weary birds, chased 
by the tempests and frightened by the howling wind 
and the roaring waves, can fold their tired and drooping 
wings, and rest safe and secure from the furious lashings 
of the angriest billows, and where they can once more 
ope their tuneful mouths and pour their praises out in 
rippling tides of sweetest song. 

Thus is the Sabbath to earth's weary pilgrims, for it 
is indeed a sweet little island of rest amid an ocean of 
toil and care, and once amid its peaceful hush we, too, 
can rest secure, for a time, at least, from the stormy 
beatings of the billows of trotible, and like the birds, 
escaped from the storm of strife we, too, can melt our 
icy hearts in songs of praise, and dream in rapture of 
that endless rest to be found in the harbor of eternity, 
when the effulgent sunbursts of Resurrection's morn 
shall usher in the splendors of that endless and beauti- 
ful and cloudless Sabbath which remaineth for the peo- 
ple of God. W. H. Blount. 



146 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



NORTH CAROLINA TEACHERS. 



IN this fair, sunny Southern land, 
Whera peace and joy and mirth 
Reign supreme on every hand, 
Glad Freedom had her birth. 

And of the States which make this land 

So brave, so free and great, 
No one will ever higher stand 

Than our noble "Old North State." 

Of those who place so high our State, 

No poets, press or preachers 
Can e'er a prouder record make 

Than "North Carolina teachers." H. 



THE VALUE OF THE UNION. 



YOU cannot calculate the value of the Union. The 
astronomer from his observatory may measure 
the disc of the sun, tell you his distance from the earth, 
describe the motion of his rays, and predict with positive 
certainty an eclipse; but he cannot compute the utility 
of heat, the blessings of light, nor the glory and splen- 
dor of the god of day. 

Who can calculate the value of constitutional united 
liberty — the blessings of a free press, free schools, and 



THE VALUE OF THE UNION. 147 

a free religion? Go and calculate the value of the 
air we breathe, the water we drink, the earth that we 
inhabit. By what mathematical process will you calcu- 
late the value of national character? In what scales 
w 7 ill you weigh political equality and the ballot-box? At 
what price would you sell American citizenship? What 
is self-government worth — its freedom, happiness and 
example? "Calculate the value of the Union !" 

Look at the mighty Mississippi, the Father of Waters — 
it rises in the nameless snows of North America, runs 
through twenty-three degrees of latitude, all our own 
soil, and washes the sides of ten young, flourishing and 
powerful States; its tributaries drain the rains that fall 
in sight of the Atlantic and meet the streams that flow 
into the Pacific upon the summit of the Rocky Mount- 
ains; its broad tides bear on their buoyant bosom the 
clothing of half of the world, and the fertile valleys 
which spread out from its ample banks are capable of 
producing food for the population of the whole earth for 
a thousand years to come. 

On its eastern shore, in a quiet spot, near the Crescent 
City, you see some clusters of small orange trees growing 
upon a broken embankment, and now and then an old 
but flourishing live-oak spreads its green branches over 
the damp sod. You are on the battle-ground of New 
Orleans ! You behold the field of the most remarkable 
victory ever won, and as you ascend the mouldering en- 
trenchment, the morning of the 8th of January, 1815, 
rises before you. Your heart beats anxiously ; you watch 
the serried columns of Packenham advance to the 



148 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

charge — you note the calm faces of Jackson's men — 
you hear the rifles' peal, the din of musketry, the can- 
non's roar — you see the repulse, the retreat^ the field of 
the dead and the dying — you cross the moat, and as the 
smoke clears away, you count the fallen; the English 
have lost twenty-six hundred men on that field — the 
Americans have lost seven killed and six wounded — you 
remember no victory like it — the historian tells you "it 
is a disproportion of loss unrecorded of any other bat- 
tle"; you see the Flag of the Stars waving over you, 
and you feel your country in your veins. Stand upon 
the battle-ground of New Orleans, by the side of the 
great Father of Waters, and tell me, if you can, what 
the Union is worth? These are its jewels — they shine 
brightly in a diadem whose full and radiant circle 
sparkles all over with glorious deeds. 

Matt. W. Eansom. 



LIFE OF A DEW-DROP. 



ON a hill-side, by a mossy stone, 
A modest snow-drop bloomed alone; 
A gentle breeze came passing by, 
Stole but one kiss, then breathed a sigh; 
It blanched the snow-drop's wax-soft cheek, 
It bowed its head so sad, so meek, 
Then from its eye a tear-drop stole, 
Dow T n its smooth cheek so white and cold. 



LIFE OF A DEW-DKOP. 149 

This tear-drop was the drop of dew 
Whose life and travels I tell to you. 
I plucked the snow-drop sweet and fair, 
I looked, but the dew-drop was not there. 
It fled in vapor and mist to rise 
And find a home in the sun-lit skies. 
On a soft, white cloud it rides at night, 
And smiles at the moon as it beams so bright. 

On the sea of blue sky in its white fairy boat 
All the dav in the realm of the skv it will float, 
Till at last it grows weary of dwelling so high; 
Earth's flowers are thirsty and ready to die. 
Returning, it freshens their beauty again, 
How gladly they welcome the light-falling rain ! 
And then as it rests on the lily at night, 
It mirrors a star in its looking-glass bright. 

But a wandering stream coming by the next day 
Embraces the rain-drop and bears it away. 
Now gently it flows and in size still it grows 
Through the long summer's heat and the cold winter's 

snows ; 
Then unites with river swept on by the stream, 
And waking, imagines its journey a dream. 
There it raises its tiny head lucid and blue, 
And murmurs "Fm only the same drop of dew." 

It goes w T andering on over mountain and steep, 
At last 'twill be found on the ocean so deep. 
There the diamond-bright dew-drop is dancing all day, 
Amid the blue waves it is happy and gay. 



150 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Still it raises its fair face in beautiful smiles 



And murmurs "I've come many myriads of miles." 
It murmurs " I am not a stranger to you, 
I'm only the same little drop of the dew." 

Martha Mills. 



ENDURING POSSESSIONS. 



LET not those who have grown gray in what they 
deem higher and more exalted pursuits affect to 
look with indifference upon the student's toils and honors. 
To the eye of enlightened judgment the successful pur- 
suit of science is far more glorious and productive of 
happiness than the attainment of laurels crimsoned with 
blood, or the most exalted political preferment. 

The warrior views with delighted eye the glittering 
columns prepared for battle, and his ear drinks with 
avidity the martial sound of the trumpet summoning to 
the conflict. The statesman, pale with care and anxious 
thought, smiles with sweet satisfaction at the effects of 
his policy, and hugs to his bosom the fond hope that his 
labored schemes will eventuate in splendid success. But 
what is the issue of a hundred victories? Go to the 
lonely tomb of the exile of St. Helena and ask the shade 
of its mighty tenant. The spell is dissolved, the illu- 
sion has vanished, and, as if touched by the spear of 
Ithuriel, the sad reality is disclosed in all its vanity and 
emptiness. 

He who created and dethroned kings at his mere will 
and pleasure, and whose ambition a continent could not 



THE BELLS OF HEAVEN. 151 

bound, was reft of his own sceptre, and confined to a 
small island, deprived of all his acquisitions, except 
those of the imperishable mind. 

In this last scene, when the conqueror's robe was laid 
aside, and the voice of the flatterer no longer told its 
siren tale, his early education, and the knowledge then 
acquired, remained, and stood by him as his firmest and 
most faithful worldly support and comfort. 

Johx H. Beyan. 



THE BELLS OF HEAVEN. 



HOW loud and long their booming thunder 
Rends the golden air asunder, 
While the ransomed, passing under, 
Fall in praise beneath the bells, 
Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells; 
And the Angels hush their harps in wonder — 
Bells of Heaven, glory booming; bells ! 

Gentler now, the silver's shiver 

Purls the rippling waves that quiver 

Through the ether's tide forever, 
Mellow as they left the bells, 
Whose softening vibrate welcome tells; 

And the quavers play adown the river — 
Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells ! 

Then the dreamy cadence dying, 
Sing as soft as zephyrs sighing; 
Faintest echoes cease replying 



152 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

To the murmur of the bells, 
Whose stilling tremor welcome tells, 
Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying — 
Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells! 

Edwin W. Fuller. 



OUR COUNTRY. 



THERE is much that is truly and most strikingly 
sublime surrounding the history of that country 
in which our lot has been cast. Who can contemplate it 
without seeing the guidance — the working of an Almighty 
arm? Whilst the empires of the old world were rising 
in grandeur and power, and successively fading away 
under the grasp of corruption and ambition; whilst the 
whole Christian world was rocked to and fro by the 
mighty conflict it waged for centuries with the Moslem 
power of the East; whilst Europe was slowly emerging 
from the cloud of ignorance and barbarism, in which it 
had been so long enveloped, this vast country, now 
smiling with the fruits of industry, and rejoicing in the 
rich trophies of civilization, lay embosomed in the sub- 
lime repose — the undisturbed solitude of nature! The 
genius of one man threw open the door to its approach, 
and it sprang into view like a new creation. Its rude 
tenants, as wild and uncultivated as the vast forests and 
lofty mountains over which they had so long roamed, 
unrestrained by government and untrammeled by laws, 
gave way on the advance of science, religion and civili- 
zation. 



OUR COUNTRY. 153 

Those who took their places were a hardy, stern, ener- 
getic race, of resolute purpose and indomitable will. 
Their history had been one of trials, difficulties and 
dangers. They had been educated in the school of a 
harsh and severe experience. They had fled from civil 
and religious persecution. The wilderness, with freedom 
of thought and unmolested worship of God, had higher 
charms for them than all the refinements and glitter of 
European society, with the weight of civil and religious 
tyranny pressing their energies to the earth, and enslav- 
ing their consciences. When they came hither, they 
brought with them, retained and cultivated those prin- 
ciples of free government, in defence of which so many 
noble spirits had fallen martyrs in the countries from 
which they fled. 

The names of Russell, of Sidney, of Hampden, in- 
spired their hearts with confidence and boldness. The 
doctrines for which they had so fearlessly contended took 
deep root and spread. The great and final conflict at 
last came. It brought with it trials and sufferings well 
calculated to appall the stoutest heart. They equalled 
any that marked the struggles which, in former ages, had 
been waged by right and justice against oppression and 
wrong. To all but a handful of gallant, unconquerable 
spirits the issue was one full of doubt and uncertainty. 
The despondency which fell on many only aroused new 
energy and enkindled more indomitable resolution in the 
hearts of those who saw, afar off through the smoke and 
carnage of battle, the light of victory. 

The same spirit that enabled them to triumph over a 



154 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

foreign foe, secured them another triumph, yet more 
glorious, because the more difficult — a triumph over them- 
selves, a triumph over passion and prejudice — over sel- 
fishness and ambition — over anarchy and licentiousness! 
From confusion sprang order; from sectional animosity 
and dissection, concord and union; from weakness, 
streugth; from prostrate credit and shattered finances, 
national wealth and inexhaustible sources of revenue! 
The nations of the earth gazed in astonishment as upon 

Henry W. Miller. 



GOD BLESS OUR STATE. 



AN ACROSTIC RECITATION FOR LITTLE GIRLS. 



[Select thirteen girls about eight or ten years of age, 
as near the same size as possible, and if all are dressed in 
white the scene will be prettier. Cut the letters about 
ten inches long for the acrostic from stiff card-board and 
cover them with gold or silver paper. Let these letters 
be suspended on the shoulders of the girls at the back, 
so that they cannot be seen when the children are facing 
the audience. 

At rear of the platform, fastened on the wall, have the 
inscription, " God Bless Our State," cut from some bright 
colored paper. This inscription to be covered by a cur- 
tain parted in the centre, to each part of which are to be 
attached strings, so that the curtain may be drawn at 



GOD BLESS OUR STATE. 155 

the proper time by two or four little girls, that the in- 
scription can be plainly read by the audience. The in- 
scription should be as large as the space will permit. An 
outline of our State Coat of Arms as a background would 
improve the closing scene. 

As each child recites her part she w T ill step to the 
front of platform, make a graceful bow to the audience, 
and speak very slowly and every word distinctly. She 
will then take her place in line, standing on the left of 
the girl preceding her. Care should be used in taking 
position not to let the acrostic letter be seen by the 
audience.] 

FIRST GIRL. 

NOW with happy hearts we greet you, 
As our days of school are ended ; 
Glad we are, dear friends, to meet you 
With joy that's real, not pretended. 

SECOND GIRL. 

On this merry day of greeting 

Pleasant memories we recall ; — 
May the moments swiftly fleeting 

Bring great happiness to all. 

THIRD GIRL. 

Rest you here in our school-home, 

Where we've gleaned from day to day 



156 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Brightest gems from Wisdom's store-house 
Which shall beam along life's way. 

FOURTH GIRL. 

Things which make our life-work noble 
Are here taught with tender care; 

"Tis such training as will make us 
Ever brave to do and dare. 

FIFTH GIRL. 

Here is laid a strong foundation 

For the building of a mind, 
In which, through the years now coming, 

Many pleasures we shall find. 

SIXTH GIRL. 

C CONSTANT, too, are we ever 
-^ In our love for native land, 
And we cherish all her treasures; 
Which we see on every hand. 

SEVENTH GIRL. 

All her noble sons and daughters 
To our hearts are very dear; — 

Faithfulness in all their labors 

Speaks their worth both far and near. 

EIGHTH GIRL. 

Rouse ! sons of the Old North State, 
Raise the banner of her pride, 



GOD BLESS OUR STATE. 157 

Let not others her glory take. 
Nor a single honor hide. 

XIXTH GIRL. 

O'er the land we'll send her praises, 

On the sea proclaim her name. 
Till the earth'- remotest borders 

Sound the echo of her fame. 

TENTH GIRL. 

Loud and long the chorus ringing, 

Like some gentle, magic spell. 
Over hill and valley winging. 

Shall our strung devotion tell. 

ELEVENTH GIRL. 

In the coming years before y<>u. 

As you journey on through life, 
May the love of home and country 

Strengthen you fur every strife. 

TWELFTH GIRL. 

Never let your pride of home-land 

Wane or die within your breast : 
Nourish it with growing fondness 

Ajs the truest and the best. 

THIRTEENTH GIRL. 

And when this life's declining years 
Close our pilgrimage on earth. 



158 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

May our weary dust then mingle 
With the soil that gave us birth. 

1st Girl — No other land beneath the skies, 

2d Girl — O'er which the flag of freedom flies, 

3d Girl — Rich though it be in wealth of gold, 

4th Girl — Though its beauty be yet untold, 

5th Girl — High though its fame like mountains rise, 

6th Girl — Can ever be to us so great 
1th Girl — As our own dear native State, 
8th Girl — Round which our hearts so fondly cling, 
9th Girl — Of which our tenderest songs we sing. 
10^ Girl — Let all her sons and daughters be 
11th Girl — Inspired with love for her, as we. 
12th Girl — Now join us in the song we raise, 
13th Girl — And sing dear North Carolina's praise. 

[At this moment the curtain will be drawn from the 
inscription on the wall and the whole line of speakers 
will reverse position and point to the words, "God Bless 
our State," and the audience will read North Carolina 
along the line. While in this position the school sings] : 

" Carolina, Carolina, heaven's blessings attend her, 
While we live we will cherish, protect and defend her." 

[Then face the audience again and conclude with the 
chorus] : 

"Hurrah, hurrah, the Old North State forever! 
Hurrah, hurrah, the good Old North State." 

H. 



RANDOLPH A. SHOTWELL. 159 



RANDOLPH A. SHOTWELL. 

SPEAKING of Randolph A. Shotwell, it cannot, in 
the words of the greatest of bards, be said, " His 
life was gentle." It had been a checkered one. Enter- 
ing upon young manhood in the warring clays of passion, 
with a musket on his shoulder, he saw life's grim visage, 
and early became acquainted with its harsh features and 
unfeeling selfishness. Following the war came what 
was called "the piping times of peace." But to him 
they were clays of hardship, days of war; and in bat- 
tling against an adverse fortune, the harsher parts of 
his nature were unduly developed — and necessarily so. 
His trial, his conviction, his imprisonment, his release, 
and his battle for the rights of an unappreciative people 
did not tend to sweeten his life, and it is not surprising 
that harsh words escaped his lips. The wonder is that, 
remembering how his life in a measure had been embit- 
tered by wrongs, he was as gentle a man as he was, and 
forgave so much. But if it cannot be said 

" His life was gentle," 

most truthfully is it granted to quote : 

"and the elements 
So mixed in him, that Xatnre might stand up 
And say to all the world, This was a man." 

Aye, indeed, he was a max — than which, when that 
is said, there can be no higher words of praise. 

There is no man among Xorth Carolinians who will 
not now admit that Randolph A. Shotwell had eminent 



160 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

claim to the respect and gratitude due to the friend that 
will stand by his friends to the bitter end; to the pa- 
triot that will offer faithful counsel, perform heroic deeds, 
and offer on the altar of his country all that a noble 
man has to offer — even life itself. 

There is no man among us who will not now testify 
that Randolph A. Shotwell had character that stood un- 
moved amid the storms of hate and oppression. Like 
the granite cliff in the howling tempest, his character 
stood true and unchanging. This is so rare a virtue in 
this day that it is impossible to those who have not the 
hero's spirit. 

There is no one among us now who would not say of 
Randolph A. Shotwell that he was generous and unsel- 
fish beyond most of the heroes of history. He bore 
truly the cruel violence of victorious haters, and his lips 
were sealed with the cement of kindness, so that neither 
the hand of torture nor the bribes of the captors could 
prize them open to the hurt of those who once had trusted 
him. There was no trait in his character that drew 
brave hearts to him and caused all men to admire him 
more than the sacrifice of self to shield his friend from 
harm. 

And neither is there any among true North Carolin- 
ians who will mention his faults or who will speak 
harshly of the omissions and commissions of his life. 
He was too much that is noble to permit us to look with 
more than a glance of tearful love on aught that mani- 
fested itself in his life which was imperfect. His high 
sense of honor, his upright character, his devotion to 



THE MYSTERY OF CRO-A-TAN. 161 

right, and his unselfish, abounding love for his friends, 
gave him a place in the hearts of true North Carolinians 
which will be fresh and green when the granite monu- 
ment w T hich will have marked his grave has crumbled 
into dust. Josephtjs Daniels. 



THE MYSTERY OF CRO-A-TAN. 



[The little colony sent to Roanoke Island by Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh in 1581, being in great need of supplies, 
sent the Governor, John White, to England for them. 
Before he sailed it was agreed that if the colony found 
it necessary to seek another location, the name of the 
place to which they had gone should be carved on a tree 
at the fort; and, if they had left in distress, a cross was 
to be cut above the word. Governor Whitens daughter, 
Eleanor Dare, and her little babe, Virginia Dare, re- 
cently born to her in that wild American home, were 
left with the colonists to await the return of the Gov- 
ernor from England. He was absent three years. His 
vessel came to anchor off Roanoke Island in March, 
1590, and the Governor hastened to find his child and 
her companions; but the fort was deserted, and not a 
trace of the colonists has ever been discovered to this 
day save the single word Croatan carved on a pine post 
near the fort.] 

THE breath of spring was on the sea : 
Anon the governor stepped 
His good ship's deck right merrily; 
His promise had been kept. 



162 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

"See, see! the coast-line comes in view !" 
He heard the mariners shout, — 

" We'll drop pur anchors in the sound 
Before a star is out!" 

"Now God be praised/' he inly breathed, 
"Who saves from all that harms: 

To-morrow morn my pretty ones 
Will rest within my arms!" 

At dawn of day they moored their ships, 

And dared the breakers' roar. 
— What meant it? Not a man was there 

To welcome them ashore ! 

They sprang to find the cabins rude; 

The quick green sedge had thrown 
Its knotted web o'er every door 

And climbed each chimney-stone. 

The spring was choked with winter's leaves, 

And feebly gurgled on ; 
And from the pathway strewn with wrack 

All trace of feet was gone. 

Their fingers thrid the matted grass, 

If there perchance a mound 
Unseen might heave the broken turf; 

But not a grave was found. 

They beat the tangled cypress swamp, 

If haply in despair 
They might have strayed into its glade, 

But found no vestige there. 



THE MYSTERY OF CRO-A-TAN. 163 

" The pine ! the pine ! " the governor groaned ; 

And there each staring man 
Read, in a maze, one single word 

Deep carven, — Cro-a-tax ! 

But cut above, no cross, no sign, 

Xo symbol of distress; 
Naught else beside that mystic line, 

Within the wilderness ! 

And where and what was " Cro-a-tan " ? 

But not an answer came, 
And none of all who read it there 

Had ever heard the name! 

"Oh", daughter! daughter! with the thought 

My harrowed brain is wild! — 
Up with the anchors ! I must find 

The mother and the child!" 

They scoured the mainland near and far; 

The search no tidings brought, 
Till, 'mid a forest's dusky tribe, 

They heard the name they sought. 

The kindly natives came with gifts 

Of corn and slaughtered deer : 
What room for savage treachery 

Or foul suspicion here? 

They searched the wigwams through, 
But neither lance, nor helm, nor spear, 
Xor shred of child's nor woman's gear, 

Could furnish forth a clue. 



164 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

How could a hundred souls be caught 

Straight out of life, nor find 
Device through which to mark their fate 

Or leave some hint behind? 

Had winter's ocean inland rolled 

An eagre's deadly spray 
That overwhelmed the island's breadth 

And swept them all away? 

In vain, in vain, their heart-sick search : 

No tidings reached them more, 
No record save that silent word 

Upon that silent shore. 

The mystery rests a mystery still, 

Unsolved of mortal man : 
Sphinx-like, untold, the ages hold 

The tale of Cro-a-tan. 

Margaret J. Preston. 



THE TONGUE. 



THE tongue is one of the best and most useful gifts 
from God. By it we speak our words and express 
our opinions. By it the worshipper sings his praises 
and voices his prayers. By it the minister preaches his 
sermons and informs his hearers. By it the lawyer states 
his case and pleads for his client. By it the teacher 
enforces his ideas and instructs his pupils. By it the 
lover tells his love and plights his troth. 



THE TONGUE. 165 

Its tones soothe the weeping infant and its prattle 
gladdens the mother's heart. It utters the voice of en- 
treaty and the cry of distress. It gives the order of the 
director and the report of the servant. Yea, it is the 
most ready instrument of expression of the feelings and 
desires of the human soul, and is the universal posses- 
sion of man. 

The tongue has much the advantage over writing in 
the energetic expression of thought. While writing has 
the advantage over speech in preserving the records of 
time for the instruction of the reader, yet one receives a 
much clearer idea of the thought intended to be con- 
veyed when it falls from the lips of the living speaker 
than by its perusal in print or writing. Tones, looks 
and gestures, which accompany speech, aid the speaker 
in making himself understood. These interpreters of 
the speaker's ideas, of course, do not aid the reader in 
grasping the contents of the printed page. 

Any gift attended with so much blessing will, when 
perverted or improperly used, prove just as great a curse. 
This is eminently true in the case of the tongue. I 
would weary the patience of my kind audience were I 
to tell of all the evils of the tongue. I will briefly refer 
to some of the tongues which I sincerely wish that he 
who speaks and those who hear will never possess : 

1st. The evil tongue. This tongue is deceptive, mis- 
chievous, perverse and fro ward. It is like a sharp sword 
or razor. As these dangerous weapons are used to 
wound, mutilate and destroy, so does the evil tongue 
effect like mischief with the names and reputations of 
people. Let us avoid the use of the evil tongue. 



166 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

2d. The lying tongue. The sin of lying is perhaps 
more commonly practiced than any other sin. Where is 
the class in society — yea, where is the individual — that 
has never been guilty of this detestable vice? Its prac- 
tice debases, and renders it almost impossible for the 
guilty ones to ever reach the higher types of manhood 
or womanhood. Who has any confidence in the habit- 
ual liar? Who can believe him even if he should tell 
the truth ? This tongue is cowardly, too, because it fears 
to tell the truth to men, while it does not fear to lie 
before God. 

3d. The slanderous and the tale-bearing tongue. These 
tongues are twin-brothers, and rarely separate in their 
mischievous work. How they wound and separate 
friends ! 'How they divide neighbors ! How they stir 
up strife in whole communities, and even impair the 
harmony of the benevolent organizations of men and of 
the churches of the living God! 

Allow me in closing to recommend the use of the 
good tongue. Of course, to avoid the evils just pre- 
sented would be to use well the gift of speech. The 
good tongue is truthful and right; is wise and just; is 
sound and peace-making; is kind and healthful, and is 
guileless and modest. As honey is sweet to the taste of 
the eater, so are pleasant words to the ear of the hearer. 
When the tongue is used in imparting useful knowledge, 
it is then a jewel more valuable than gold and more to 
be desired than rubies. 

The wise king of Israel said that " death and life are 
in the power of the tongue." Will not each and all of 



THE NETTSE RIVER. 167 

my respected auditors join me in the endeavor to ever 
employ this powerful instrument, the tongue, so that 
we may promote life and not death by its use? 

James H. Alford. 



THE NEUSE RIVER. 



FAIR river not unknown to classic song — 
Which still in varying beauty rolFst along, 
Where first thy infant is faintly seen, 
A line of silver ? mid a fringe of green; 

Or where, near towering rocks, thy bolder tide, 
To win the giant-guarded pass doth glide, 
Or where, in azure mantle, pure and free, 
Thou giv'st thy cool hand to the washing sea. 

Fve been where the waters are sparkling and pure, 
Fve watched them roll gallantly on to the sea, 

And I loved their sweet murmuring voice, but Fm sure 
I never as Neuse thought them lovely to me. 

Fve stood on the breast of a hill-shaded vale, 
And listened with joy to full many a rill, 

That sported around me all sparkling and pale, 
And then have I said, Xeuse is lovelier still. 

Fve gazed, when the moon lent her magical light, 
On a field of clear waters all tranquil in rest, 

With a mirror of heaven, as blue and as bright, 

And then have I vowed that I loved Neuse the best. 



168 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Thy waters, fair river, have flowed by the shore 

Where my fathers are sleeping, since first thou wert 
free 

From the kind hand of Nature, that never made more 
So bright, so enchanting, so lovely as thee. 

Regretful waves, well may you weep and sigh 
For this bright Eden as you pass it by, 
For wander where you may, you ne'er will kiss 
A shore so bright, so beautiful as this. 

Thomas Watson. 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 



PAUL was emphatically a great man. He possessed 
an intellect which grasped the sublimest truths; a 
heart that loved God and bled with compassion for man. 
He lived as well as preached Christianity. He was a 
portraiture and a proof of the religion of Christ. 

Standing upon an eminence unreached by the masses, 
he took such a view of the world which prevented his 
judgment from being carried away by show; and with 
the law of God as his standard, he formed a calm and 
deliberate opinion of mankind. He deprecated the re- 
ligion of the religious, pitied the ignorance of the philo- 
sophical, and wept over the degradation of the great. 
He estimated no man according to his birth, his office, 
his attire or wealth ; but according to the real amount of 
truth that lived in his heart and was embodied in his life. 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 169 

In the scene of Paul before Agrippa, the poet, the 
orator, the painter and the sculptor may find a subject 
worthy of the highest effort of genius. Paul stands before 
royalty as a criminal, undaunted and brave. Neither 
the anathemas of his own countrymen nor the scowl of 
the world could crush that spirit of his, which rose in 
triumph over all. 

He was in chains, and yet, on the face of this globe, 
there was no man more free than he; his spirit exulted 
in a liberty which no despot could injure, no time de- 
stroy. An outcast in the world was he, and yet its 
rulers trembled at the majesty of his looks and the power 
of his words. 

Now we ask that you closely observe this scene before 
us — the boldness and calmness of the Apostle — the tremor 
and agitation of Agrippa are to be referred to one and' 
the same principle. And what was that principle? Was 
it genius? Learning? Law? No. It was Truth. The 
power of this truth manifested itself in shaking the re- 
ligion of the monarch. 

There is no task more difficult than that of destroying 
a man's faith in his own religion, for man has a religious 
nature — a nature made for God, and every opinion that 
he has entertained on his religion he holds to with more 
than an iron grasp. It is easier to argue a man out of 
anything else than out of his religious creed, — for this 
he has often given up his home, his friends, and his life 
even. • 

But of all classes of men no class would feel it more 
difficult to change their religion than kings; because the 
8 



170 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

obstacles in the way of a sovereign changing his religion 
are greater than those of any one else. He is often a 
religious slave. The religion of his people must be his ; 
and so pride, policy or fear would bind him to his creed. 
Bring the religion of the Cross in fair contact with 
them all, and they shall vanish away like the mists of 
the morning. Like Aaron's rod, the Cross shall swallow 
up their enchantments. It shall dispel any error that 
darkens the human judgment; snap any fetter that in- 
thralls the human soul; it shall give to every spirit its 
right and freedom — the long-lost inheritance of man. 

Thomas E. Skinner. 



THE BLIND BOY. 



IT was a blessed summer day : 
The flowers bloomed, the air was mild ; 
The little birds poured forth their lay, 

And everything in nature smiled. 
In pleasant thought I wandered on, 

Beneath the deep wood's ample shade, 
Till suddenly I came upon 

Two children, who had hither strayed. 

Just at an aged beech-tree's foot 
A little boy and girl reclined ; 

His hand in hers she kindly put, 
And then I saw the boy was blind. 



THE BLIND BOY. 171 

The children knew not I was near, 



1 3 



A tree concealed me from their view; 
But all they said I well could hear, 
And I could see all they might do. 

" Dear Mary/' said the poor blind boy, 

"That little bird sings very long: 
Say, do you see him in his joy? 

Is he as pretty as his song?" 
"Yes, Edward, yes," replied the maid, 

I see the bird on yonder tree." 
The poor boy sighed and gently said, 

"Sister, I wish that I could see. 

" The flowers you say are very fair, 

And bright green leaves are on the trees, 
And pretty birds are singing there, — 

How beautiful to one who sees ! 
"Yet I the fragrant flowers can smell, 

And I can feel the green leafs shade, 
And I can hear the notes that swell 

From those dear birds that God has made. 

"So, sister, God to me is kind, 

Though no sight to me He's given; 
But tell me, are there any blind 

Among the children up in heaven?" 
"No, dearest Edward, there all see: — 

But why ask me a thing so odd?" 
"Oh, Mary, He's so good to me, 

I thought Td like to look at God." 



172 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Ere long disease its hand had laid 

On that dear boy so meek and mild: 
His widowed mother wept, and prayed 

That God would spare her sightless child. 
He felt her warm tears on his face, 

And said, "Oh, never weep for me; 
Fra going to a bright, bright place, 

Where Mary says I God shall see. 

"And you'll be there, — dear Mary, too; 

But, mother, when you get up there, 
Tell Edward, mother, that 'tis you, — 

You know I never saw you here." 
He spoke no more, but sweetly smiled 

Until the final stroke was given ; 
When God took up the poor blind child 

And opened first his eyes in heaven. 

Francis L. Hawks. 



AMBITION, TRUE AND FALSE. 



WHAT is ambition? Literally the word signifies 
the act of going around, and originally it was 
applied to persons who w r ent around to solicit votes for 
office. It is now used in a broader sense and is applied 
to persons who are solicitous not only for office, but also 
for honor, power, wealth, influence, or excellence in any 
work or calling. 

Ambition may be used for good or for evil. It may 
result in usefulness to the world, and in the honor and 



AMBITION, TRUE AXD FALSE. 178 

glory of those who are actuated by it; or in public 
damage and calamity, and in the dishonor and disgrace 
of those who are controlled by it. 

It is laudable to desire even superiority among our 
fellow-men ; and ambition becomes false only when 
allowed to control our actions to the injury of others 
or to our own injury. Persons actuated by it have, on 
the one hand, blessed the world ; and, on the other, 
cursed it. On the one hand, it has lightened the bur- 
dens and soothed the sorrows of mankind; and, on the 
other, it has brought misfortune and distress, and swept 
the world as with a besom of destruction. Philanthro- 
pists, scholars and patriots, as well as despots and mili- 
tary tyrants, have worshipped at its shrine. 

Ambition must be guided by some higher principle of 
action. Our motives, purposes and aims in life are of 
the greatest consequence as guides to our ambition. Un- 
der natural laws water does not rise higher than its 
source. When there are no disturbing influences, the 
needle points to the magnetic pole. So, too, as a rule, 
men do not rise higher than they aim ; and w r hile their 
environments have much to do with their successes and 
failures, some ambition, true or false, is a pole to which 
their lives are pointed. 

After his brilliant campaigns in 1862, General Robert 
E. Lee, the thunders of battle having scarcely died away, 
wrote from Fredericksburg to his daughter this senti- 
ment, true, and as beautiful and pure as the snow that 
then mantled the earth: " Study hard and gain knowl- 
edge, and learn your duty to God and your neighbor, 



174 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

for that is the object of life." At another time he wrote 
to his son reminding him that duty is the sublimest 
word in the language. Here we find the principle that 
guided General Lee's ambition. It was his devotion to 
duty in this highest sense that caused him to decline the 
command of the United States armies which was ten- 
dered him, although that was the highest position attain- 
able in his chosen profession. His sense of duty forbade 
his raising his arm to strike his native State or the South, 
no matter how brilliant an award of profit and honor 
might await him. Notwithstanding the cause for which 
he fought so grandly failed of success, yet he was grander 
in defeat than he had been in war. The world has made 
up its verdict to the effect that he was perhaps the great- 
est soldier of his time, and that he was a man whose 
renown shall grow brighter as his deeds, virtues and 
unsullied character shall become better known. Let not 
his devotion to duty — duty to God, his neighbor, and 
his country — -be forgotten. Let it be an example of 
inspiration to us all— an example of true ambition. 

The poet makes Cardinal Wolsey say, after his high 
preferments had been taken from him : 

" Too much honor : 
Oh, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden 
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven! 
Cromwell, I charge thee fling away ambition : 
By that sin fell the angels : 

* * * Be just and fear not: 

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O, Cromwell, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! * * * 

O, Cromwell, Cromwell ! 
Had I served my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 



INDEPENDENCE DAY. 175 

Let our ambition be not mainly the attainment of 
honor, wealth or influence, for they are disappointing; 
but let it be duty well done. That is true ambition. 
Let North Carolinians love their native State. Let them 
appreciate her noble sons and daughters, her forests and 
streams, her mountains and valleys, her history and her 
gallant defence of human rights. When we contend 
for preferment among our fellow-men, let it be that noble 
contention which aims at bettering the condition of our 
State and country. Let our ambition be ever so great 
if it is guided by a due sense of duty to God, our neigh- 
bor, and our native land. Sidney M. Finger. 



INDEPENDENCE DAY— JULY 4th. 



MY gentle muse a line indite, 
My tardy pen a couplet write, 
To Liberty a stanza sing, 
And to her shrine an offering bring; 
Of thoughts and numbers, notes and time, 
Arranged and set in lawful rhyme;. 
And thus an humble tribute pay, 
On this our Independence Day. 

Let freemen, in exalted verse, 
The deeds of sainted sires rehearse ; 
And to their children read and tell 
The work their fathers did so well; 
And to their names due homage pay, 
On this our Nation's natal day; 



176 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

Exhort our youth to imitate 

The actions of the good and great; 

Our chartered liberties extol 

Of equal rights to great and small, 

God's gift, the people's government, 
No longer an experiment; 
But that which doth a nation bless 
With happiness, a grand success. 

No regal dixit do we heed, 

Nor king's protection do we need; 

A monarch's sceptre, crown and throne, 

Are things to liberty unknown; 

No royal line, no noble blood, 

But only great as great is good. 

" We hold these truths self-evident," 
From peasant up to President ; 
That each man is his fellow's peer, 
That none, by right, may interfere 
With honest effort made aright 
By revelation's glorious light, 
To study and improve the mind, 
To honor God and bless mankind. 

D. K. Bennett. 



I knew you would all be here 
This exhibition night; 

And as we on the stage appear, 
We'll try to do just right. 



north Carolina's independence. 177 



NORTH CAROLINA'S INDEPENDENCE. 



I am proud that I was born in the State of North 
Carolina, and that I am a citizen of Mecklenburg 
county. The most modest and unassuming of all the 
States, we do not sufficiently vindicate the just merits of 
our own people. We should cultivate more pride in 
our splendid annals, and without approaching to intol- 
erant vanity we yet should have sufficient self-assertion 
to do justice to ourselves and our ancestors. 

No State has a prouder share in the deeds and events 
which are connected with the establishment of national 
liberty and national glory. In all of these she w T as 
either first or among the first. On her shores was 
planted the foot of the first white man who landed on 
the shores of this great land ; within her borders was 
shed the first blood ever shed on American soil, in 
resistance to the oppression of the mother country in 
the battle of Alamance. Within her borders, one hun- 
dred years ago, the first Declaration of Independence was 
made in these United States, and by her Provincial Con- 
gress was the first authority given, to her delegates in 
the Continental Congress to declare National Indepen- 
dence of Great Britain. North Carolina, in truth, fur- 
nished the birth-place of American liberty, but so long 
as we imitate our sires she will never furnish it a grave. 

And in all the hundred years that have elapsed, North 
Carolina has maintained the proud position she assumed 
in the beginning. True, she has not advanced in mate- 



178 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

rial prosperity like some of her great and more favored 
sisters. She has not built so many railroads and large 
cities, containing such vast accumulations of capital, but 
in all things which pertain to human freedom, in all 
things which tend to preserve the patriot souls of men 
white and pure from the taint of despotism, North Caro- 
lina is behind none. 

And though, in that splendid constellation of great 
men who established this government among the nations, 
there may be stars of a greater magnitude and which 
shine with a brighter lustre, yet, as it sweeps across the 
plains of heaven careering toward the zenith, in the van 
of that glittering throng you will ever see brave and 
modest North Carolina. Z. B. Vance. 



DIXIE 



CREATED by a nation's glee, 
With jest and song and revelry, 
We sang it in our early pride 
Throughout our Southern borders wide, 
While from fen thousand throats rang out 
A promise in one glorious shout 
"To live or die for Dixie!" 

How well that promise was redeemed, 
Is witnessed by each field where gleamed 
Victorious — like the crest of Mars — 
The banner of the Stars and Bars! 



DIXIE. 179 

The cannon lay our warriors low — 
AVe fill the ranks and onward go 
"To live or die for Dixie !" 

To die for Dixie ! — Oh, how blest 
Are those who early went to rest, 
Nor knew the future's awful store, 
But deemed the cause they fought for sure 
As heaven itself, and so laid down 
The cross of earth for glory's crown, 
And nobly died for Dixie. 

To live for Dixie — harder part ! * 
To stay the hand — to still the heart — 
To seal the lips, enshroud the past — 
To have no future — all overcast — 
To knit life's broken threads again, 
And keep her memory pure from stain — 
This is to live for Dixie. 

Beloved Land! beloved Song, 
Your thrilling power shall last as long — 
Enshrined within each Southern soul — 
As Time's eternal ages roll ; 
Made holier by the test of years — 
Baptized with our country's tears — 
God and the right for Dixie ! 

Fanny Downing. 



180 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS. 



The highest source of happiness to a mortal is the 
consciousness of doing good. The highest source of 
happiness to God is His consciousness of doing good. 
The illimitable and unfathomable mind of the Eternal 
is filled with pleasure by this consciousness. And the 
vast and unlimited universe is impressed and filled with 
the evidence of His goodness, as the odor of the oint- 
ment filled the whole house. 

The impress of His goodness is fixed upon everything 
that appears around us, and transpires about us. It is 
printed upon every leaf and every flower, upon every 
wind and every wave. It glitters in the dew-drop and 
beams forth in the rainbow. Evening and morning are 
lighted up by His smile. The clouds, like great ships, 
plough the air, and drop down their freights of fatness. 
And what appears to the eye is insignificant, compared 
with the impress of His goodness throughout the vast 
universe. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and 
the firmament showeth his handiwork." 

So with the humbly pious; those who, like God, do 
good, go through their earthly probation visiting the 
sick, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, pouring 
oil into the spirits that are wounded, fill their own 
minds with pleasure, and they impress the age and gene- 
ration in which they live with their goodness. 

" The name of the wicked shall rot, but the memory 
of the just is precious." Here is the path to all the 



THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS. 181 

earthly immortality that is worthy of our aspirations. 
When I die I would rather have a plain, simple stone 
placed at my grave, bearing truthfully the inscription, 
"He spent his life in doing good, blessed the world w^hile 
living, and died regretted by all," than to have a tow r - 
ering monument of marble and brass emblazoned with 
deeds of conquest. When I die I would rather have 
all the poor children and orphans of my vicinity, whose 
feet I had shod, and whose persons I had clothed, come 
to my funeral and weep at my grave, than to have the 
booming of cannon and the waving of banners. 

Then let me say, consecrate in humility your all to 
Christ. Take Him as the pattern of your life, and go 
about doing good. Ameliorate the condition of your 
race ; labor to advance the cause and kingdom of Christ; 
fail not to put your mark upon the age in which you 
live; let each of your hearts be touched with the fire of 
love from off the altars of Heaven ; cast away all pride 
and formality; speak words of hope to the despondent; 
take the hand of orphanage, and lead it through the 
difficult and hazardous paths of this pilgrimage; tend 
in the chambers of the sick; stand in the portal of the 
tomb and flash the light of God's promises over the 
shadows that rise from the grave; and when you die you 
will live in the hearts of your survivors. This is the 
road that leads to immortality on earth, and ends with 
immortality in Heaven ! Numa F. Reid. 



To make a good speech — let me whisper in your ear, 
Talk slowly, distinctly, and make everybody hear. 



182 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



THE GANDER. 



A GANDER is a noisy fowl, 
And very fond of strife; 
The oldest goose that's in the flock 
He's sure to make his wife. 

His feet are very broad and flat, 

His neck is long and slim, 
And when he pokes it out at me, 

I'm sure to run from him. 

In springtime he is very fierce — 

A real fractious pest — 
He will not let me go about 

His dear companion's nest. 

There, like a sentinel on guard, 
He'll stand from morn till night, 

And stretch his neck and hiss and squall 
And flap his pinions white. 

He helps the old goose build her nest 

Of all the trash in sight, 
And gets in now and then himself 

To see its finished right. 

Well pleased, he stands around the nest 

On one foot half the day, 
And pulls the feathers off the hens 

That dare to go that way. 



THE GAKDEK. 183 

And when the goslings are hatched out, 

His little flock don't bother, 
And if I see him come this way, 

I'm sure to go the other. 

A woman can out-talk a man, 

In anger or in fun ; 
A gander can out-talk a goose, 

And beat her two to one. 

He gabs so fast in telling how 

He whipp'd some saucy hen, 
The old goose only gets a word 

In edgeways now and then. 

And then he'll get in such a glee 

To tell the news intent, 
The old goose gives up in despair 

And merely nods assent. 

Now sometimes little boys and girls 

Break their dear teachers' rule, 
And come with smutty hands and face 

And soil their books at school. 

A gander is a cleanly fowl 

(Although he's very mean); 
If he has access to a brook, 

He'll keep his feathers clean. 



184 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

In that regard, my little friends, 

I raise, a flag of truce, 
And bid yon lay aside your wit 

And emulate a goose. 

J. W. Harrington. 



THE HISTORIC RECORD OF NORTH 
CAROLINA. 



NORTH CAROLINA feels that she is one of the 
elder daughters of the great American family, and 
in all the higher and sublimer elements of character the 
equal of any; because she has a record and a history 
that she is justly proud of, and that cannot be taken away 
from her either by her enemies or the ephemeral poli- 
ticians of the hour. 

The first Englishman that ever landed on the soil of 
the United States was sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to 
the shores of North Carolina, at Roanoke Island, on 
the 4th of July (prophetic coincidence !), 1584, before the 
Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, or Jamestown was settled. 
The first child of English parents born in this country 
first saw the light on her soil ; and it was of her colo- 
nists that Governor Burrington, as early as 1732, in an 
official dispatch, said : "The inhabitants of North Caro- 
lina alv/ays behave insolently to their governors, and some 
of them they have imprisoned; and all the governors 
that ever were here lived in fear of the rebels — except 



GREAT REFORMS ARE SLOW. 185 

myself — and dreaded their assemblies and their love of 
liberty/' 

The first blood of the colonists ever spilled was poured 
out, as a rich libation in defence of liberty, in Alamance 
county , on the 7th of May, 1771; and the first declara- 
tion of independence of the British yoke — afterward 
incorporated almost literally into the national Declara- 
tion — w^as made and proclaimed at Charlotte on the 20th 
of May, 1775. 

Wayward and wilful, perhaps, she has been ; but 
honor and virtue still are hers. If her errors have been 
great, her suffering and oppression have been greater. 
Proud of her statesmen and heroes who sleep beneath 
her sacred sod, she cherishes in her heart her living 
children, and loving them with a mother's warm affec- 
tion, she begs them not to forget or forsake her. 

J. M. Leach. 



GREAT REFORMS ARE SLOW. 



THE Reformation burst not upon the world like a 
sunrise in the tropics; but like the sun of a far 
more northern clime, it cast before it a long prophetic 
twilight. To the geologist, however much the strata 
may have been flexed and contorted in a single period, 
one fact is indisputable — that time is long. So to the 
student of history, however much men's passions may 
have been swayed in a single era, one truth remains 
fixed — that reforms are slow. 



186 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

But if they are slow, they are also permanent. Be- 
hold the giant oak ! It has spread its branches far and 
wide, and shot its roots deep down into the bowels of 
the earth. It has been rocked to and fro by the storms 
of centuries, and will stand for centuries more. So. that 
moral principle, which has spread its influences far and 
wide and buried its roots deep down in the hearts of the 
people, will stand and grow the stronger the more it is 
rocked by persecution's storms. 

Let not the philanthropist, then, expect to metamor- 
phose the world in a day, either morally or politically. 
Better to be like John Milton, who "sowed for future 
generations, nor waited for the fruits." Again, you may 
not, like Luther, be leader of some mighty movement — 
after your name no sect of Christians may be called ; yet, 
if you are zealous in the cause in which you have em- 
barked, you may shed an influence boundless as infinity — 
endless as eternity. 

There is a lesson of reform whose importance as yet 
we can but dimly realize— whose philosophy but darkly 
understand. They tell us that before the foundation of 
the world, when thousands of ministering angels stood 
around the throne of God, He would send them upon 
His various missions throughout the universe, but He, 
Himself, sat still. Lucifer had rebelled and drawn after 
him a third of heaven's stars, and been hurled to depths 
unfathomable — nor yet the Almighty left His throne; 
world after world had been created, and "hurled hot 
from the hand of the Creator out into space," and had 
taken up its everlasting circuit around its central sun — 



WOOD DBEAMINGS. 187 

nor yet the Creator moved. But when far out on the 
suburbs of creation, on an atom called the Earth, there 
occurred a violation of His law— then, for once, He left 
His throne : at which the universe did a new lesson 
learn — that God did much to create, but more to re-cre- 
ate; and the angels a new song sang before the throne: 
That God sat still, creation's vast extent to form. But 
one world's littleness to renovate — reform, He left His 
everlasting seat! W. J. Peele. 



WOOD DREAMINGS. 



o 



H, the forest wide is the place for me, 
Where the sweet-tongued thrush is singing; 



When the wind is low in the narrow glen, 
And the echoes wild are ringing: 

For here is the spot where the antlered stag 
In the deep, cool shade is sleeping, 

And the lichened rocks by the haunted spring 
With crystal tear drops weeping. 

Oh, sweet it is in the twilight gloom, 

On the turf to lie half dreaming, 
To hark to the faint song far away, 

And see still waters gleaming; 
To lie with listless eye and watch 

The tall, white lilies bending 
In the breeze that sways the spectral moss, 

From huge old limbs depending. 



188 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

The growing shadows go stretching along 

O'er the wary trout slow creeping; 
While the bittern sits on his lonely stake, 

His sleeping vigils keeping: 
Then a timid fawn creeps up to drink, 

And startles at even the murmur — 
Of the tiny brooklet in the grass, 

Rejoicing in the summer. 

Then sweet it is in the wild greenwood, 

'Midst the silence all unbroken, 
Save the birds' fresh lay on the evening air, 

So joyously outspoken ; 
To lie and be watching the wondrous things 

In the cool depths e'er abiding; 
And dream of the forms so far away, 

In the land to which we are gliding. Anon. 



OUR DUTY AS PATRIOTS. 



AS the custodians of liberty we have a great work 
to perform. It must be preserved inviolate on 
these western shores for our children and for their chil- 
dren's children. We must keep step henceforth to the 
music of the Union. We held firmly, unwaveringly, to 
certain noble principles we thought in danger. We ap- 
pealed to the sword, and were defeated. Our people 
have accepted in the most absolute good faith that deci- 
sion. There will be no more war for those principles, 
although they are imperishable. 



OUR DUTY AS PATRIOTS. 189 

In the words of that very eloquent and able divine, 
Dr. Moses Hoge, " A form of government may change, 
a policy may perish, but a principle can never die. 
Circumstances may so change as to make the application 
of the principle no longer possible" So the South will 
never again take up arms for any principle that entered' 
into the war between the States. It has solemnly sworn 
henceforth to maintain and cherish the Constitution as it 
is. That beautiful flag, so dear to our hearts, that once 
floated in triumph over so many battle-fields, has been 
furled forever. 

Inscribe these talismanic words upon your banners : 
Duty to God, duty to country, duty to self. Let conse- 
quences take care of themselves, let us take care of duty. 
Let us, as free men, go straight forward in the path of 
duty. Let that be our pole-star, our guiding principle, 
our inspiration. Let genuine patriotism abide in our 
hearts and control our lives — that patriotism that stands 
ready, if need be, to " refine itself into martyrdom," and 
is pledged to. "suffer as well as act." Let us preserve 
inviolate our ancestral faith, our spirit of consecration 
to right principle, our devotion to liberty, our obedience 
to law. 

Let us each swear upon the altar of our common 
country that we will be faithful to our country's liber- 
ties, that we will do what we can as good citizens to work 
out, for the benefit of those who are to follow, that 
problem of such mighty potency and such mighty pos- 
sibilities — the problem of a free, constitutional, just and 
popular government on this vast continent. 

Theodore B. Kingsbury. 



190 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

THE BENEFITS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



THE war was not without its benefits to us, and even 
now we can discern them. It w 7 as inevitable. 
^Sooner or later ft had to come. It could no more have 
been avoided than you could have stayed the movements 
of the tides. It ought not to have been unavoidable, 
to be sure, just as man ought not to become diseased, 
but it was. So long as society remains irrational, so 
long as human governments are imperfect, will the sword 
be the final arbiter. It is a survival of the savage na- 
ture that the refining hand of time has never obliterated, 
a remnant of the ages long ago. 

I say that the war with all its dark catalogue of hor- 
rors brought in its train many compensatory blessings. 
It developed the manly virtues of our people, their inhe- 
rent fortitude and self-sacrifice. It is something to have 
illustrated the valor of a people; to have carried a na- 
tion's flag without dishonor through a hundred battles ; 
to have set an example to coming ages of what unselfish 
heroism can accomplish; to have immortalized a State; 
to have accepted defeat with fortitude — and this we did ! 

Again, the war built upon more certain and enduring 
foundations the government of the United States. It 
was a protest against centralization. It has established 
the true equipoise between the government and the sov- 
ereign States. The pendulum, it is true, during the 
war and for years afterwards swung far towards tyranny. 
But as the years go by and the times are becoming tran- 
quil it is swinging back. The legislation of Congress, 



THE BENEFITS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 191 

the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
attest this fact. And to-day the government stands 
upon a broader and stronger basis than it has ever occu- 
pied before. 

Should we regret the struggle? Why? Were we 
honest in our convictions? Yes. Were we sincere in 
our allegiance to the Confederate States? Yes. Were 
we in earnest? Yes. Except for the suffering and 
death, inseparable accompaniments of war, we have 
nothing to regret. Does this affect or lessen our loyalty 
to the government now is not a compromise of truth 
or a confession of error, nor is it repugnant to a past 
loyalty to that adolescent nation whose star shone with 
abnormal brilliancy for a few short years and then van- 
ished into the blackness of darkness forever. 

The men who followed the " Stars and Bars" from 
Bethel to Appomattox with ceaseless devotion, defended 
them amid the whirlpool of blood that surged and eddied 
around Malvern Hill, carried them up the crimson slopes 
of Gettysburg, followed them into the jaws of death at 
Spottsylvania, shielded them like a tiger at bay over its 
young behind the earthworks of Petersburg, and furled 
them at Appomattox forever and forever. 

And the day is not far distant, if it be not already 
come, when the courage and heroic deeds of both sides 
will be recognized as the common property of us all, 
and the names of those who found immortality, of Lee 
and Thomas, of Jackson and McPherson, of Semmes 
and of Farragut, will be the common heritage and com- 
mon glory of a prosperous and patriotic people. 

Charles M. Busbee. 



192 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

THE MYSTERIOUS BORDER-LAND. 



THERE is a mysterious land unlike any upon 
which the sun shines. Its realms are as vast as 
the bounds of space, its thrones grander than the king- 
doms of earth, its palaces more resplendent than the 
dreams of Aladdin; its rivers flow with eternal music, 
its forests wave in more than tropical glory, its oceans 
roll with the primeval grandeur that engulfed the an- 
cient continents; its skies shine with auroras, whose 
light and color the sunlight may not hope to rival. 

Alas, there is close by a region of darkness profound, 
abysses of frightful depth, sounds and sights and fears 
of unimaginable woe; an unexplored home of spirit 
and demon and goblin dark, of spectres and all imagina- 
ble horrors. Here men walk all their days in leaden 
gloom, or sullen striving, or frantic rage against their 
fate. Beckoned on by a ghostly hand, they enter this, 
the terrific plain of melancholy, to march to a final 
grave within its caverns. 

The former of these is the Kingdom of Genius, the 
latter is the Habitation of Madness. Between the two 
there lies a strip of unknown breadth, which we may 
term the -Border-land of Reason. Here narrow, there 
wide-stretching and peopled by adventurous spirits who, 
sometimes crossing in rapid flight, have turned hither 
and thither with scorched wing and terror-stricken step; 
or, mayhap, in their devious way, now to hope and 
again to despair, have gone down at last in endless 
night. 



THE MYSTERIOUS BORDER-LAND. 193 

In this border-land have dwelt great numbers of the 
marked men of their race — warriors, philosophers, kings, 
poets, prophets, artists, patriots and statesmen. 

The history of our fellow-men who have thus par- 
taken of the greatest glories, but also of the most fright- 
ful calamities that may befall humanity, has for us a 
fascination beyond the wanderings of a Livingstone in 
equatorial wilds, or a Kane amid the frozen secrets of 
the arctic North. 

Ever since man recorded his thoughts for brother man, 
the conception of the supernatural has accompanied his 
mental life. Consciously or unconsciously, we are striv- 
ing again and again to pierce the veil about us, and know 
the ultimate reasons of things, and recognize their invisi- 
ble causes. 

From the time of the familiar demon of Socrates, or 
the attendant spectre of Descartes, to the witches of our 
ancestors, and the spirit-manifestations of our own times, 
the human mind has ever been reaching for alliance with 
the supernatural. To plunge into the depths of pro- 
found abstraction, to lose one's self in the inmost recesses 
of reverie, is a perilous journey, from which only the 
most gigantic minds, like Homer and Shakespeare, can 
safely return. 

There are lessons from the shadowy side of life, of 
the wanderings of the great by Plutonian shores, that 
are often concealed from sight, or glossed over by the 
historic pen, or darkly hinted, but which, if openly read 
and courageously considered, may not be without good 
to come. Eugene Grissom. 

9 



194 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

SONG OF THE TELEGRAPH. 



I COME ! I coine ! I wire my way 
Through the quiet night and bustling day; 
From the prairie lone, from the ocean's bed, 
From nestling coves, from the mountain's head, 
From polar snows and from torrid heats, 
Wherever the pulse of the lightning beats; 
I come with my message of deep import, 
Or of some lightsome kind, in very sport, 
And sadness or joy is on my wing, 
As one or the other I promptly bring. 

I lay my head on the ocean's floor, 

And talk for men through its awful roar; 

I link the continents side by side, 

Conversing through storm and raging tide, 

And space itself is nothing to me, 

As I flash my words over land and sea. 

Sometimes the mortal hand that takes 
My hand in his, will cause mistakes, 
And words I utter do go astray, 
And are never heard by the far away ; 
Though my faithful ones are true and quick, 
With their never-ending click, click, click; 
They wait on me with steady gaze, 
For I tell them secrets. I know their ways, 
And many a story concealed from men, 
Is open as day to their wakeful ken. 



SONG OF THE TELEGRAPH. 195 

But then, dear friends, the good I do 
Is not all brought in public view; 
And the question is to test my worth, 
In every part of the air and earth. 
If I should cease in my endless run, 
To fill my place, what could be done? 
For I do my work ere the engine starts, 
In town, in country, in foreign marts, 
And I beat time so, that men live more 
In one short week than years before. 

And my servant is that which is bright and clear, 

As the sun or stars in their fiery sphere; 

It is caught from the skies, and is everywhere, 

In the heights and depths of the vital air, 

And is destined yet, in the year to be 

In the shop, in the mart, on land, on sea, 

To move all things in the place of steam, 

And to light all things with its wondrous beam. 

I come ! I flash the wires along, 
And I hum the notes of the lightning's song, 
Over valley and hill, from sea to sea. 
And nations wonder, and welcome me. 
And I go for all, and I serve as soon, 
With my viewless feet in their fiery shoon, 
The poor and the rich, the young and old, 
Whenever my messages are told. 

William W. Holden. 



196 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



SOUTHERN WOMEN. 



F I ^O our brave Southern women no sacrifice was too 
JL great, no anguish too keen for their patient and 
heroic endurance. How they knelt and struggled in 
prayer for the safety of their absent ones and for the 
triumph of the Southern cause, Heaven, to whom their 
petitions were addressed, only knows. How they suf- 
fered was a sacred secret, known only to their tender 
hearts and sensitive natures, for the secret was kindly 
kept from those to whom the knowledge would have 
brought dismay and pain more terrible than that of the 
battle-field. But how they lived in hope and cheer, we 
know, and how in the hospital and on the tented field 
they came as good spirits, ministering with tender hand 
to the wants of the wounded and dying. 

We know, too, how they bore the responsibilities 
which the absence of their protectors and guardians de- 
volved upon them ; how, with admirable tact and inge- 
nuity, which never deserted them, they provided against 
the inconveniences resulting from necessities to which 
they had theretofore been utter strangers; how, in sim- 
ple, unadorned homespun dress, woven by their own 
hands, they appeared more queenly than all the silks 
and satins, the rich tulle and point lace of the foreign 
markets beyond the close blockade could have made 
them. 

In the darkest hours of the storm they were calmest. 
Their inborn courage, akin to that which nerved the 



SOUTHERN WOMEN. 197 

hearts of our soldiers, never quailed ; and when the craft 
laden with such precious hopes was dashed upon the 
strand in all the ruin of a hopeless wreck, they were 
present to comfort, encourage and strengthen the more 
precious crew for the new duties that followed defeat. 
It is they who, without neglecting the present or future, 
cherish most tenderly the fragrant memories of the past, 
and weep with deepest sorrow over the tombs of the 
fallen. 

Some one has beautifully suggested that upon the 
tallest memorial shaft erected to commemorate Southern 
valor, should be inscribed " To the Unknown and Un- 
recorded Dead" I would add that another should be 
raised, of purest Parian marble, tall and beautiful, pol- 
ished and carved with exquisite grace, and bearing the 
inscription : — To those who were strong in their weak- 
ness and brave in their tenderness : Whose duties, though 
less prominent to the world, demanded no less sacrifice 
and were performed with no less fidelity than the more 
conspicuous duties of the soldiery: Whose heroism, 
though seldom proved by death, was evinced in suffer- 
ing of no less intensity : Who had smiles for the hero 
and scorn for the recreant coward : Whose love made 
victory brighter and defeat more tolerable: Whose 
prayers were unceasing and tender care untiring : Whose 
weeping was holy and forgiveness of foes was Chris- 
tianly. Our Noble Southern Women! 

Robert T. Gray. 



198 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 



THE OLD NORTH STATE FOREVER. 



WE never tire in sounding the matchless advan- 
tages of our grand old Commonwealth, North 
Carolina, her resources and possibilities ; in her forests the 
most valuable timbers are found, her mines teem with 
all the most precious and valuable as well as most useful 
minerals; within her borders, along her streams, are 
found the brightest, rarest jewels, and by her firesides 
and in her fields are found truest hearts; her sea-coast 
dotted by numberless bays and sounds, her interior 
pierced by innumerable rivers, on which the white- winged 
messengers of commerce can waft you or yours to any 
land beneath the broad canopy of heaven; the shriek of 
the locomotive disturbs alike the sea-gull resting on her 
eastern w r aters and the eagle in his eyre on her highest 
western peak. 

Yes, this is all ours. Whose sons and daughters have 
been truer to every trust imposed on them, whether 
amid the carnage of war, in life's battle, or around the 
family altar? Where is such scenery offered to the eye? 
Her western boundary marked by mountains pointing 
their snow-capped summits skyward, her eastern bound- 
ary washed by the crested waves of the broad Atlantic. 
Her rivers dotted thickly, with unlimited water-power; 
her lands equal to any in fertility ; her gorgeous hues of 
semi-tropical plants, fruits and flowers deck in peerless 
beauty her mountains, hills and plains to gladden the 
eye or tempt the palate. She rests amid her natural beau- 



THE OLD NORTH STATE FOREVER. 199 

ties, free, proud and self-reliant, offering peace, plenty 
and happiness to all. 

I would not traduce other lands, nor ignore their 
claims, but would turn to our Eden with its magnolia 
bowers, its feathered songsters, its even temperature, its 
fruits and flowers, and its beautiful maidens, its true- 
hearted sons, its mountains, hills and plains, and by her 
bright waters, turning from all the rest of the grand old 
world, I would linger out the remainder of my days, and 
then rest on her bosom, above me the flowering dog- 
wood and jessamine waving in the scented breeze, the 
mocking-bird singing my last requiem from a neighbor- 
ing bough, and the grass above my head kept green 
by love's sweet libation from one of her true-hearted 
daughters. 

Why seek other lands? Can they offer you more? 
They may promise, but that promise will remain unful- 
filled. Then be not lured from her borders; she has 
need of you all in bringing into use her vast resources 
dormant, only waiting the magic touch of perseverance 
and industry to pour into your coffers her hidden wealth. 

May yours be the hand to guide to her future destiny ; 
with you it should be a labor of pride and love; then be 
not ungrateful and leave to aliens the sacred duty of 
nurturing your mother State. The peer of any land in 
all that can make man happy, in all that can make man 
prosperous, she offers you a home; then leave her not, 
but with redoubled energy pull off your coat, roll up 
your sleeves, and reap the glorious harvest around you ! 

Z. W. Whitehead. 



200 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPEAKER. 

GOOD NIGHT. 



CONCERT RECITATION. 



Good friends, we hope you did enjoy 
Our speeches by each girl and boy; 
On our school at work next fall 
Don't fail to make a friendly call. 

Now has come the time to part, 

It brings sadness to each heart, 

Gently, too, the tear-drops start. 

Hoping your future may be bright, 

To you, now, we wish Good Night! H. 




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Book No. 3 contains nothing but the Capital Letters. This is a 
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